Re: Mercury's Orbit of Advance Calculated by Einstein

From: greywolf42 (mingstb_at_marssim-ss.com)
Date: 07/23/04 

Date: Fri, 23 Jul 2004 11:50:00 -0700

Australopithecus Afarensis <fossil.lucy@cox.net> wrote in message
news:qv1Mc.7614$_K2.7475@lakeread02...
> According to the article referred by Bjerknes,
>
> http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/physics/pdf/9811/9811050.pdf
>
> Einstein calculated the advance of Mercury's orbit around the sun a few
> weeks before General Relativity was presented by himself. Does any one
> know how Einstein was able to calculate this advance of Mercury's orbit
> with incomplete field equations? And a few months before
> Schwarzschild derived the Schwarzschild metric?

The GR field equations were completed in 1913. Marcel Grossman and Albert
Einstein jointly provided a complete "general theory of relativity" in a
paper of that date. This is historically distinguished as the "Entwurf"
version of GR. The equations remain unchanged between 1913 and 1915-6.
However, Einstein modified the philosophy (definitions) of the equations
from 1913, specifically to correct a percieved anomaly.

Coincidentally, the anomaly that Einstein was correcting was the difference
between Newcomb's value for the NNPA of Mercury (42 arcseconds/century) with
the results of the "Entwurf" definitions (18 arcseconds per century). By
changing the definitions (and thus allowing a different calculational
method) Einstein was able to match Newcomb's value. Once Einstein matched
the value, he figured he'd hit on the right interpretation.

["(Einstein) did know of the Entwurf prediction, for he wrote to Arnold
Sommerfeld on the 28 Novermber 1915 that his previous field equations were
'entirely untenable' and that one of the reasons that he had known this was
that the motion of the perihelion of Mercury was '18'' instead of 45'' (sic)
per century' (Hermann 1966, p. 32)." (Roseveare, 1982)]

> Is this an event that finally has proven time
> traveling as a very real possibility?

I would say no.

> Also, does any one know who
> actually derived it since Einstein's math was known not to be so sharp?

The EFE were originally produces by Marcel Grossmann. Dr. Grossmann was a
frequent collaborator and collegue of Dr. Einstein. And Dr. Grossmann was
by all accounts a first rate mathematician. 

--
greywolf42
ubi dubium ibi libertas
{remove planet for return e-mail}

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