Re: Challenge to Jim Scotti

Article: <6ht5jc$8rr@dfw-ixnews7.ix.netcom.com> 
Subject: Re: Challenge to Jim Scotti
Date: 25 Apr 1998 17:13:16 GMT

In article: <6hpens$gml@pmgm.Stanford.EDU> John Ladasky writes:
>>>> So why would it TRUCK SIDEWAYS to get back to the 
>>>> other side of the ellipse for the inbound trip? What 
>>>> GRAVITY PULL causes it to  truck sideways? Gravity 
>>>> is suddently negated?
>>>>       ZetaTalk
>>>
>>> The object travels slowly and at a fairly consistent velocity, 
>>> until it falls sunwards, 
>>>         M.C. Harrison
>>
>> If it falls sunward, then why is it moving SIDEWAYS?  
>> You've got the thing slowing down, moving away from the
>> Sun way out there on the right.
>>           ZetaTalk
>
> But *never* straight away from it.
>             John Ladasky
>>
>> Now it is moving slowly, slowed as the gravitational giant to
>> its back is pulling it backward, but instead of falling directly
>> TOWARD the Sun, it decides to go sideways, moving 
>> STEADILY sideways, not veering toward the Sun?  What 
>> force pulls it sideways?  You've got it making the same trek,
>> from right to left, way out there in space, as it did left to right
>> when close to the Sun!  Why!  The speed is not the same, as
>> you've stated, it has slowed down.  Logically, it should start 
>> to fall toward the Sun SOONER, when in the way out part 
>> of the ellipse, no?  Why does it NOT do this?   
>>           ZetaTalk
>
> Because gravity is weaker at the far end of the ellipse!
>             John Ladasky

(Begin ZetaTalk[TM])
You are addressing only part of the factors, in an attempt to avoid the
contradiction.  You're treating the ellipse as though it had a memory,
and was dutifully following your math formulas.  Focus on the orbiting
object, in a long ellipse, when it is going into the long stretch away
from the sun.  To avoid distractions, which you are using to avoid the
point, we will NOT say it is going straight away from the sun, its
gravitational giant.  Take a section of that orbit, during that portion
of its journey, and draw the vectors affecting this orbit.  

1. You have the vector of it's original straight line path, no longer
at an exact tangent to the sun as it is heading more away from the sun
than that.  You create this vector line by taking a point behind the
orbiting object, and placing another point AHEAD of the orbiting
object, and connecting the dots.  This is the forward thrust vector.  

2. you have the vector representing the pull of the sun, the
gravitational giant, which is albeit a weaker vector than the forward
thrust.  

Now take a look at both those vectors, which form a triangle with a
line drawn tangent to the sun.  In a long ellipse, the vector back to
the sun, the TRUE DRAWN OF THE GRAVITY PULL which exists in fact, and
must be included in your computations if you are to model reality, is
at a sharp angle to the forward thrust.  This represents the drag the
orbiting object is experiencing.  The drag does NOT pull the orbiting
object into a curve, is slows it, increasingly, so that two things
would happen outside of the factors we know are in place during orbits,
factors which you distain.  

1. The drag would slow the orbiting object steadily, until its forward
thrust was stopped and only the vector returning the object to the sun
existed.

2. Having stopped in its forward thrust, the object would fall DIRECTLY
into the Sun, in aliegance to the gravity pull vector.
(End ZetaTalk[TM])