On 2/7/2014 1:37 PM, [email protected] wrote:
On Monday, February 3, 2014 6:27:14 AM UTC, Brent wrote: On 2/2/2014 10:12 PM, [email protected] <javascript:> wrote:Namely that however you jig it, there's still going to be huge spacetime distortion representing the sun and a tiny one representing the earth, which - I thought - had to bias the objectively true relation between the sun and the earth for the earthbeing gravitationally dominated by the sun not the other way around.So the question was whether one could just consider the Sun, calculate the spacetime metric due to its mass, and then calculate the orbit of the Earth as an inertial path in that metric? In that case of course the answer is no. The metric has to take into account the mass of the Earth as well as the Sun. Just as in Newtonian theory, the Sun and the Earth, and Jupiter and the other planets all move around their mutual center-of-mass. The center-of-mass is roughly near the surface of the Sun on the side nearest Jupiter. BrentHi Brent - Sure, but is it ok to look at the sun and the earth together, purely as their geometry's in spacetime, and say "that one goes around that one" to the same sort of accuracy we can say the earth goes around the sun without invoking relativity. Or is doing that running foul of the basic principles in play of relativity ?
I'm not sure what you're asking. The corrections to a simple "stationary Sun, orbiting Earth" due to Jupiter are much bigger than any GR effect.
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