[Physics] Physics Digest, Vol 8, Issue 6 a lame defense here

[cj at mb-soft.com]

Golly.

(The wristwatches wasa joke, which I assumed all of you would have realized.  Reading a wristwatch to the nearest thousandth of a second would be tough, anyway)

You seem to be impllying that we do not know the orbital period of the Moon to "better than a few seconds"?  Wow.  You also clearly have nevver used the VSOP87 database.  ALL of the gravitational interactions in the Solar System are quantified to many decimal point accuracy.  The VSOP87 data is not precise enough to track the effect that YOU have on Uranus' moon Umbriel from jusut walkingn around on Earth (your gravitational effect exists, and maybe someday the VSOP87 data will get that accurate, but not yet.  The ONLY reason that myy six months of mathematically analyzing the VSOP87 data in 1992 was able to PREDICT where Io and Europa were going to be four years later, was because the VSOP87 mountains of data terms WERE and ARE amazingly accurate.

I realize that any TIME referrence that you have ever seen have only given values "to the nearest minute" or "to the nearest second", but I assure you that workingn with the Calculus Integrals of the VSOP87 data for those six months impressed me with their accuracy.  In MY results (back in 1992) I actually COULD have presented the times to the nearest thousandth of a second, but I did not, because I did not think "the public" would have been able to use such precise times.  You are sounding like a "world class authority" in correcting me on this matter.  Again, I ACTUALLY SPENT THE MONTHS DOING THE MATH, so I like to think I have some idea what I am talking about.

Forr your information, VISUAL data is of minimal value.  A Photometer is used to identify the MOMENT when "first contact" occurs, just like for eclipses of the Moon, which is FAR more accurate than anyone with their eyes.  By the way, when anything visual occurs, yoour optic nerves and your brain take about 0.025 second before you are aware of it, and that varies slightly by individual.  For many decades, photometers have been usued by astronomers.

But I hear your corrections to me, who is clearly an ignorant person.

I see you keep repeating about my ignorance of such things, and I appreciate it.

By the way, I was not ANNOUNCING that the world must try the proposed one-way light experiment I suggested.  I merely had seen such terrible logical erors in the ideas your group had been discussing regarding possible one-way light determinations that I had merely presented an idea which had occurred to me during my  math adventure of 25 years ago.  Even though you have clearly explained to me that (which is utterly impossible), since I actually DID THE MATH and used the VSOP87 data, I have to disagree.  But I also note that ALL existing ESTIMATES of the speed of light, including the "official" nine-digit value decided in the 1980s, have all been based on "out and return" paths, I also wonder if there mightt be some "yet unknown" factor which might affect the accuracy of such "out and return" values.  After all, many oof your group still believe in the "aether" of 1870 thinking.  I see some appeal in trying to determinen a "one-way speed of light" which does not rely on speculative assumptions.  I thought that the idea of ACTUALLY knowing when some event occurred with good accuracy, and the using photometers here at various locations on the Earth to determine when the even was seen, minimal assumptions would be involved.  However accuraely such an experiment could be done might provide a "new" speed of light.

OBVIOUSLY, we better count on Wikipedia for the most reliable information.  Since Wikipedia keeps secret the authors of all their articles, you have no way to ask how that author determinned thst the "uncertainty is 4 parts per billion".  But I guess I better trust that, too.

I allso have an apology to make.  I am now old and I have severe Parkinsons, so when I type, sometimes keys get hit twice or extra letters appear in my text efforts.  Oh, well.

Carl Johnson.
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