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

Paul B. Andersen <relativity@paulba.no> wrote:

Den 14.10.2024 02:43, skrev rhertz:

I think that Time Magazine is a die hard Einstein's theories and figure
promoter since 1945 (3 times Man of the Year covers, plus Man of the
Century). It's not hard to trace Time Magazine roots with the Jew
community and with Princeton.
 
This article, from 1968, narrates very lightly the Shapiro's experiment,
and hail it as "almost a proof" of General Relativity. With articles
like this one, Shapiro was extraordinarily hyped and granted him a
global name and public funding for his next "experiments".

 
It's a popular article in TIMES magazine, not a scientific paper.
 
Why didn't you read Shapiro's paper?
 
https://paulba.no/paper/Shapiro_1968.pdf
 

 
I want to remark that this was published 46 years ago, and FAIL TO
EXPLAIN that the prime subject of the experiment (gov. sponsored) was to
measure the location of THE CENTER OF THE SUN, as it was vital for
newtonian celestial mechanics to be applied to interplanetary travels.
It was a secret experiment (1965), which competed with Russian efforts
in the same sense. Part of the HOAX was narrated in the book "The Farce
of Physics".

 
This is nonsense.
The Haystack radar was even modified to make Shapiro's
experiment possible.
 
https://paulba.no/paper/Shapiro_1968.pdf
 
"Several years ago it became evident that a new
  test of general relativity was technically feasible.
  The proposed experiment was designed to verify
  the prediction that the speed of propagation
  of a light ray decreases as it passes through
  a region of increasing gravitational potential.
  . . .
  An intensive program was therefore undertaken
  early in 1965 to build a new transmitter and
  receiver system to provide the Lincoln Laboratory
  Haystack radar with the capability to measure
  to within 10 ?sec the time delays of pulses traveling
  between the earth and Mercury or Venus
  when either planet was on the other side of the sun
  from the earth — the superior conjunction alignment.
  The improved radar was put into operation shortly
  before the last such conjunction of Venus,
  which occurred on 9 November 1966."
 

 
The exact orbits of planets (and distances to them) was known very
grossly, FAR BEYOND the error margins of the 1965 experiments.

 
This is wrong. Read Shapiro's paper!
 
 

Shapiro's
experiment WAS A BYPRODUCT of the main experiment. What was ALLEGEDLY
MEASURED in 1965 was A DELAY OF 5 msec on a round trip of 23 minutes
between Mercury and Earth (both at opposite sides of the Sun). They
considered an error of +/- 20%, being that the PRECISION was to be about
3.6E-06 (3.6 ppm), a value HIGHLY QUESTIONABLE for such epoch, being
that THE NOISE involved in the measurement of a powerful radar signal
(at the reception) WAS EQUAL OR HIGHER than the received signal itself.

 
Of course the received signal was much smaller than the noise.
The transmitted power was 300 kW, and the received signal could be
as small as 1e-21 W.
 
Hint: Cross correlation.
 

 
I post the entire article, so you can have a laugh.

 
The idiot laughs at what he doesn't understand.
 

 
https://time.com/archive/6834981/physics-probing-einstein-with-radar/
 

 
When you are done laughing, you can read Shapiro's paper.
 
https://paulba.no/paper/Shapiro_1968.pdf
 
But since you invariably fail to understand and always misinterpret
what you read, it probably is no point in trying to read it.

Moreover, Shapiro's paper is titled
FOURTH TEST OF GENERAL RELATIVITY: --PRELIMINARY RESULTS-- [Emph. JJL]

For Shipiro the results were at the edge of what was technically
possible to detect, -at the time-.
Nowadays taking Shapiro delay has to be incorporated
into space probe tracking and orbit determination.
Nutters worry about popular reports of the original experiment,
while the results themselves are standard everyday engineering.

Hint for RH:
All interplanetry spacecraft are equipped with transponders.
These devices respond to an incoming radio pulse by responding
with a reply pulse, with a known delay.
The replies are of course detected routinely,
and measured delays are used for orbit calculation and navigation.

More hint for RH: radar echos diminish with r^-4,
and are soon lost in the noise.
Transponder reception and response goes with r^-2,
and still works reliably for spacecraft beyond PLuto,
like the Voyagers. All you need is a big radio dish.

Final hint: The Parker near solar probe for example
would be hopelessly lost if Shapiro delay on its signals
wouldn't be taken into account correctly.
While you whine about it the mission engineers who fly the thing
routinely take it into account without even giving it another thought,

Jan