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This new development might ignite a "new Copernican revolution" that will change our world-view for ever. If we accept this solution to our modelling problem, we will also gain two very important advantages. First, the progression of time is explained; the incrementally increasing scale makes time progress, which also explains why it has been impossible to model the progression of time in GR. The second advantage is that a discretely expanding scale would provide a direct link between general relativity and quantum mechanics (see also section 10). Se etitetine iekemee time progress, whi 50 explains why it has been imp ssible to 7. Estimating the planetary orbits model the progression of time in GR. The second advantage is Nobody knows when the first human raised her eyes to the that a discretely expanding scale would provide a direct link heavens and noticed that not all stars were stationary but that a between general relativity and quantum mechanics (see also few of them seemed to wander. Although the significance of section 10). these wandering stars was unknown, they were recognised as being special, and people started to map and predict their 6. Cosmic Drag motions. One immediate consequence of the Scale Expanding Cosmos Today the planetary orbits are still of central importance to the model is that relative velocities of freely moving "particles" (I NASA space program. Predicting the planetary orbits, or the take a particle to mean any object with positive rest mass) will planetary ephemerides as they now are called, is one of the slow down with time. Relative velocities much lower than the responsibilities of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), which is speed of light will diminish exponentially with time, with a time a division of NASA. constant that equals the Hubble time. The Hubble time is the Traditionally the planetary orbits were estimated with the help age of the universe in the BB model, which is about 14 billion of Newton's laws of motion and his law of gravitation, by which years. This means that relative velocities between galaxies tend the planetary orbits are elliptical. Thus, planetary orbits were in to be quite small because of cosmic drag. They may be the past fitted to elliptical orbits based on optical observations, estimated from observations and typically are less than one per which determined the orbital parameters. In this process of cent of the speed of light. This has fitting the orbital parameters, the been difficult to explain in the BB time-base was also estimated and picture where numerical adjusted for best fit to the simulations indicate that relative observations. This was a very velocities ought to be a lot higher difficult and time-consuming task, than what is observed. On the This new development might which later was simplified by the other hand, particles initially oo. " . use of digital computers. moving at the speed light—for ignite a new Copernican By ne middle of the “on 4 _ . Pe . + 7 4 mnove atthe speed of light. This is | *@VOlution” that will change of computing the planetary perhaps strange, but it follows our world-view for ever. ephemerides were well understood, directly from GR (Masreliez, and advanced computer programs 2004a). were developed that allowed us to Cosmic drag will also slow down take into account gravitational relative rotating motion, causing influences between the planets as angular momenta to decrease well as the larger asteroids. exponentially with time. As a The time-base was still estimated consequence, stars in motion in a spiral galaxy will follow spiral together with the planetary motions. trajectories on their inward paths and gravitational attraction In the middle of the 20th century, a new time standard entered between them will form the beautiful spiral arms we observe. the scene. This was atomic time, based on sub-microscopic Thus, the SEC theory would also explain the formation of spiral oscillation. This new time standard was adopted by astronomy galaxies, which has been a previously unresolved problem in 1955; hence, all observations since then have been tied to (Masreliez, 2004b). atomic time. Furthermore, cosmic drag should influence the planetary After the adoption of atomic time, it was suggested that the motions in our solar system, causing the planets to approach the ephemerides should be based on atomic time rather than on an Sun slowly in spiral orbits. The Earth would approach the Sun estimate from planetary motions. However, this proposal was by about 20 metres per year and the angular velocity would rejected by JPL (Standish, 1998). In the 1970s it became accelerate. This effect is extremely small and therefore has gone possible to refine the orbits further by making use of radar unnoticed until very recently. We haven't detected this ranging measurements between the planets, which are at least spiralling motion earlier because the concept of time in one order of magnitude more accurate than the optical data. astronomy was in the past determined by the rotation of the Today, the ephemerides are primarily based on radar ranging Earth and by the motion of the Earth around the Sun. data between the Earth and the other three inner planets. Optical Obviously, if one defines the length of the year as the time it observations are only used for the outer planets. takes for the Earth to circumnavigate the Sun, any possible JPL rejects the optical data for the inner planets because not acceleration of the Earth in its orbit around the Sun will be only are the optical observations less accurate, but they also undetectable because of the way we have defined time. show a consistent bias—a bias that repeatedly has been This made it impossible to detect the spiralling motions before confirmed by several independent investigators. the introduction of atomic time in 1955, but now, after Since the ranging data are superior to optical data, JPL has observations have been made for 50 years with access to atomic ignored this discordance, suspecting that the optical time, discrepancies are starting to appear, showing that currently discrepancies are due to some kind of systematic error, but we have a mysterious, unresolved problem in astronomy. This nobody knows what might be causing it. Also, when fitting the is a very interesting "breaking news" situation, which soon may ranging data, earlier measurements from the beginning of the confirm the SEC theory. ranging program do not seem to fit. This new development might ignite a "new Copernican revolution’ that will change ee Oe ee es Sn 42 = NEXUS JUNE — JULY 2006 our world-view for ever. www.nexusmagazine.com