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Author Topic:   The Big Bang is NOT Scientific
JonF
Member (Idle past 193 days)
Posts: 6174
Joined: 06-23-2003


Message 29 of 301 (203447)
04-28-2005 7:03 PM
Reply to: Message 25 by lost-apathy
04-28-2005 6:47 PM


Re: Cranky mode
"Several relativistic effects are too small to affect the system at current accuracy levels, but may become important as the system is improved; these include gravitational time delays, frequency shifts of clocks in satellites due to earth's quadrupole potential, and space curvature."
From what i get from reading this is that currently our technology is not precise enough to measure to such a degree.
Sorry, you got it wrong. It is true that the GPS system is not good for testing relativity, but it's not because we can't test relativity; rather, it's because GPS is nowhere near as accurate as the best instruments we have for testing relativity, and to keep it performing its primary function we have to reset the clocks periodically. But it's an excellent example of practical application of relativity. If the clocks were not deliberately tweaked, in accordance with the predictions of relativity, to keep the wrong time here on Earth, then the clock would require "steering" (i.e. resetting) much more often ... so much more often that the system wouldn't work nearly as well as it does if relativity were not correct.
From Real-World Relativity: The GPS Navigation System:
quote:
To achieve this level of precision, the clock ticks from the GPS satellites must be known to an accuracy of 20-30 nanoseconds. However, because the satellites are constantly moving relative to observers on the Earth, effects predicted by the Special and General theories of Relativity must be taken into account to achieve the desired 20-30 nanosecond accuracy. ...
The combination of these relativistic effects means that if not accounted for the clocks on-board each satellite would tick faster than clocks on the ground by about 38 microseconds per day (45-7=38)! This sounds small, but the high-precision required of the GPS system requires nanosecond accuracy, and there are 1000 nanoseconds in a microsecond. If these effects were not taken into account, a navigational fix based on the GPS constellation would be false after only 2 minutes, and in general errors in global positions would accumulate at a rate of about 10 kilometers each day! The whole system would be utterly worthless for navigation. This kind of accumulated error is akin to measuring my location while standing on my front porch in Columbus, Ohio one day, and then making the same measurement a week later and having my GPS receiver tell me that my porch and I are currently flying about 5000 meters in the air somewhere over Dayton, Ohio.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 25 by lost-apathy, posted 04-28-2005 6:47 PM lost-apathy has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 50 by lost-apathy, posted 04-29-2005 11:37 PM JonF has replied

JonF
Member (Idle past 193 days)
Posts: 6174
Joined: 06-23-2003


Message 37 of 301 (203501)
04-28-2005 9:30 PM
Reply to: Message 35 by Sylas
04-28-2005 8:51 PM


Re: Tests of relativity
Engineers of the modern GPS system therefore took this well confirmed scientific model into account, and actively adjust the clocks to track time at ground level. As a result, those clocks are not measuring observable time for the satellites.
I have a nephew who works with satellites. The satellites involve imaging, and that's all he'll say. Once, when staying at his house, I was browsing his library and came across a highly technical (but very well organized, written and illustrated) book on GPS. I read a lot of it, and really understood how it worked ... but I 've forgotten a lot of it, and the name of the book.
Anyhow, my memory of what that book said is not quite what you said. As I recall, the clocks on the GPS satellites are keeping, as best we can engineer, the proper time for an observer on the satellite. The effects that require steering are not relativistic; they're mostly thermal, or at least similar to thermal. They are stochastic, unpredictable in magnitude and direction. So they have to accumulate some error, measure it, and give the right kick in the right direction. Otherwise, if the errors were predictable, we'd just program in the appropriate empirically derived correction on top of the relativistic correction.
So the steering is not based on this well-confirmed scientific model (which is how I read the first sentence I quoted); the "regulator" of the clock is pre-set on the ground based on this well-confirmed scientific model. The steering is for other effects.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 35 by Sylas, posted 04-28-2005 8:51 PM Sylas has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 40 by JonF, posted 04-29-2005 8:24 AM JonF has not replied

JonF
Member (Idle past 193 days)
Posts: 6174
Joined: 06-23-2003


Message 40 of 301 (203605)
04-29-2005 8:24 AM
Reply to: Message 37 by JonF
04-28-2005 9:30 PM


Re: Tests of relativity
As I recall, the clocks on the GPS satellites are keeping, as best we can engineer, the proper time for an observer on the satellite.
Oops, that can't be right. They are keeping the proper time of an observer on Earth's surface and, therefore, not the proper time of an observer on the satellite. The rest of what I wrote is AFAIK correct.

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 Message 37 by JonF, posted 04-28-2005 9:30 PM JonF has not replied

JonF
Member (Idle past 193 days)
Posts: 6174
Joined: 06-23-2003


Message 59 of 301 (203917)
04-30-2005 8:55 AM
Reply to: Message 50 by lost-apathy
04-29-2005 11:37 PM


Re: Cranky mode
You have just backed up my point that the article given is not sufficient evidence for relativity, but just a mere example.
An example of a practical application, mere or not, is always strong evidence for.
Of course, GPS is just an easily understood selection from the tens of thousands of individual tests of and evidence for relativity.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 50 by lost-apathy, posted 04-29-2005 11:37 PM lost-apathy has not replied

JonF
Member (Idle past 193 days)
Posts: 6174
Joined: 06-23-2003


Message 61 of 301 (203919)
04-30-2005 9:11 AM
Reply to: Message 51 by lost-apathy
04-29-2005 11:45 PM


There have been many cases to where carbon dating has not been accurate, which is why we do the test many times. If a rock is dated to be 5 billions years old 5 times and two times is some crazy number, they are not going to take the average of all the numbmers, but the most accurate ones. Its just a matter of how you look at it.
This is off-topic, but I can't help replying since you've made significant errors.
First, your first sentence has no relationship to the second two. C-14 is not used to date rocks, not is it used to date anything more than about 50,000 years old.
Second, you allegation of scientists discarding data is unsupported, insulting, and just plain false. If a rock is dated to be 5 billion years old 5 times and two times is some crazy number, the first thing scientists do is try to figure out which numbers are wrong and why. Whether or not they can figure out what's going on they will report all the numbers, and highlight the conflict if there still is one. You should read "The Age of the Earth", G.Brent Dalrymple, Stanford University Press, 1991. Not only is it an excellent exposition of the evidence for the age of the Earth, it contains many examples of exactly what you claim doesn't happen; scientific publications of anomalous results, and the story of how the anomalies were resolved. When scientists come up with anamolous results, they put them out publically for the entire scientific community to work on. They will not (except for a very few dishonest ones) discard data they don't like. As Isaac Asimov said:
quote:
The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not 'Eureka!' but 'That's funny...'.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 51 by lost-apathy, posted 04-29-2005 11:45 PM lost-apathy has not replied

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