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Re: NIF: Kepler part II

On Thu, 2 May 1996, A. R. Marlow wrote:

But John Mallinckrodt's construction does bring up an added stipulation
that should be made explicit, but that has so far been only implicit:
"Without introducing adjustable constants, i. e., using only constants
of the nonadjustable kind such as Pi, G, g, Etc."

If we can introduce adjustable parameters, I can do it in any frame with
just one: M+m itself.

I don't understand this objection. I don't see that I've introduced
parameters that are any more "adjustable" than G or g. Like G and g my
parameters are determined from experimental fits to data. That data,
scrupulously gathered *within* the reference frame by releasing small
objects from rest at different positions, makes it clear that the "initial
acceleration field" consists of a component that is away from and directly
proportional to the distance from a line and two more components that are
toward and inversely proportional to the squares of the distances from the
centers of the two large bodies. With the added knowledge of Newton's
laws it is immediately apparent that the last two terms are the result of
the well-understood gravitational attraction and the masses of the two
bodies are unambiguously determined.

Note to J. M. -- However, if you do find a way to evaluate your
constants in a practical way, I think the binary star people will be
very much interested in your methods. To my knowledge, they have not
yet been able to get separate values for masses of binary components.
But I'm not up on their techniques beyond Newton's version of Kepler's
law III.

Ah! You want a *practical* way of doing it. Why dincha say so? I agree
that it would be a bit impractical to go to the binary system and release
small objects from nearby points in space. I was laboring under the
misapprehension that the only restrictions were theoretical.

O.K. I give up. ;-).

John
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A. John Mallinckrodt email: mallinckrodt@csupomona.edu
Professor of Physics voice: 909-869-4054
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web: http://www.sci.csupomona.edu/~mallinckrodt/