Re: The Shapiro's experiment HOAX. A 1968 TIME article.

LaurenceClarkCrossen <clzb93ynxj@att.net> wrote:

Mr. Hertz: Yes, the 43" is within the margin of error for Newtonian
methods. All that is necessary is refining those as Smulsky does.
There's the oblateness, the Sun's axial spin, and the barycenter orbit
to account for that, so it should suffice easily.

Your ignorance of astronomy is showing again.
The anomalous precession of Mercury's orbit (to a few '' of arc)
was generally known decades before Einstein cracked the puzzle.

Hence all kinds of attempts to explain it,
like extra planet(s), solar oblateness,
or even a Newtonian exponent of 2.00000000000001
None of these 'solutions' was satisfactory.

In the later 19th century 'everyone' knew
that there was a real problem there,

Jan