Mail Archive

Distance measurements

• Subject: Distance measurements
• From: Ray T
• Date: Fri Jun 23 15:53:34 1995
• Message-Id: id530

Dear Ray


>
>> I hope everything is going well with your work.
>
>Yes thanks.  I am concentrating on changing all my documents to
>HTML and will then add some diagrams, graphs and pictures.
>After that it will be back to the theoretical side again.
>In the background I am thinking about ultimately producing a
>book about my worka nd theories.


Yes. I remember you said when people read your papers you thought they miss
things. I think you are right. Although I am not scientifically knowledgable I
have read your papers and I can see great value there and I can see the
significance of the cycles and so on... But I can't put it all together. Maybe I
should read them again... If you could write something that ties them all together
and gives the "gist" of the idea in a very readable and understandable style so
even a non-scientist like me could get an overview of your theory it would be very
good. It would make a nice introduction to your book and I'm sure you could use it
on your WWW pages. I'm sure everything is there in your papers and I haven't paid
enough attention to them... I wil try reading them again.

>
>> Well the scientists seem to agree that you can't really tell
>> whether it is the universe or the earth rotating! That is nice...
>
>The results are the same both ways, but from a symmetry point of
>view it would be silly to consider the earth as unique.

It depends on your model of the universe :-)

>> [BTW once upon a time I lived in Canberra, which is close to the
>> Mt. Stromolo Observatory. There are three places in the world from
>> which they fire a lazar beam through a telescope aimed at a prism
>> which is meant to be on the moon, put there by one of the Apolo
>> flights. Then they try to catch the lazar beam on its way back to
>> measure the time and thus calculate the distance to the moon... I
>> spoke to the scientist in charge of the experiment and he told me
>> that although, in Australia we are theoretically in the best place
>> to do the experiment they had never been able to get conclusive
>> results. He said out of so many photons fired to the moon so few
>> would even make it all the way to the moon, through the prism and
>> back into the telescope and it was very difficult to tell if they
>> were actually the photons from the lazar or some stray light from
>> somewhere else. He said the two other places, the US and France
>> were able to get reliable results. In France they said they could
>> even do it in broad daylight!... Why do they bother with this if
>> they can just bounce radio waves off it?]
>
>Radio waves have wavelengths which are quite long (meters to kms)
>and this limits the accuracy.  Light has wavelengths which are
>tiny fractions of a cm and so would allow a much more accurate
>measurement.  This is important because the moon's orbit is quite
>complicated due to the effects of both the sun and earth and some
>tests of relativity require very fine measurements to confirm.
>
>I am very surprised that there should be any difficulty with this
>measurement.  By bouncing of the surface, radio waves lose energy
>as the square of the distance each way, making the fourth power
>for the return trip.  The 3 mirrors apparatus makes it so that the
>loss is only the second power of distance and should make it very
>much easier to detect the return signal.
>

But he told me there is not much left by the time it goes all the way to the moon
and comes back again...

>
>If you want to find the weaknesses in this, then rather than confront
>the astronomers with possible problems, I would recommend a direct
>approach such as "What is a list of the assumptions and possible
>sources of errors in determining galactic distances?".  There are
>some good astronomers out there who will give an honest answer to
>this, but they may not jump to your defence if you try to do it
>yourself.

Yes. I'm sure many scientists are reasonable chaps. I really just want to
understand how they are measuring these things. I am trying to understand the
western model and the Vedic model. As far as the sun amd planet distances are
concerned both models are reasonably close.. But the Vedic universe is nowhere
near as big [the stars are closer...]


>
>Why do you want to find problems with distances to the sun and
>galaxies?  Particularly the sun's distance is well known and I
>cannot see where you are heading.

Yes. I also think the sun-distance is probably right. But I was just thinking
about the possibilities...

>
>The Big Bang theory is not linked to the galactic distances
>especially more than any other theory.  It is linked to the
>interpretation of the redshift.  The redshift is assumed to be based
>on velocity (or expansion, which is equivalent).  There are no
>measurements which can directly verify this, as the change in
>distance is incredibly slow and we are a very long way from being
>able to directly confirm that the distance of galaxies are changing.
>Therefore it is enough to have a reasonable alternative
>interpretation for the redshift.
>
>I hope that this is useful in clarifying where (I think) the
>weaknesses and strengths of scientific measurements are.
>There is very much that I have still left out.  Partly this is
>the depth needed, partly that my knowledge will run out before
>answering all the questions.

Thank you very much. It has helped me understand it better.

>
>PS mostly the scientists like others to try and solve problems themselves
>from books before asking.  So it is better to read about how the distances
>are done and then ask about anything which you don't understand or are
>unhappy with.  If a question is asked from a genuinely searching place
>they will generally give a polite and helpful answer.
>
Thank you for the very good advice. I have access to a good library at the
University of Tasmania and I'm sure there are lots of answers there. I will look
first next time...

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