On Feb 1, 2006, at 10:20 AM, Harry Veeder wrote:
Could Gravimagnetism be involved in the precession of the perihelion of planet mercury? http://phyun5.ucr.edu/~wudka/Physics7/Notes_www/node98.html Harry
Gravimagnetism has much to do with the precession of non-circular obits. Gravimagnetism embodies the relativistic effects due to retardation. It does not account for red shift due to gravitational or acceleration time dilation. Jefimenko noted that the entire rate of precession of Mercury's perihelion could be accounted for by merely reducing the speed of gravity to less than c. Since the time he wrote his book, however, the speed of gravity has been measured at c. (See: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/2639043.stm) This implies Einstein's explanation of the remaining bit of precession is still necessary.
The reason gravimagnetism plays a strong role in orbit precession is that it is a 1/r^3 effect. The attraction and thus acceleration close up to the sun is greater than further out. The angular motion of mercury is increased a little bit when up close to the sun, and thus the precession of the orbit results.
Horace Heffner
