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Old 12-02-2010, 11:10 AM
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sjastro
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Quote:
Originally Posted by bojan View Post
Hmmm
Could you be more specific?
Could you provide me (us) with more accurate information?
The absence of gravitational aberration has nothing to do with the speed of gravity greatly exceeding the speed the light but rather the motion of the body in the field.

A common "pictorial" misinterpretation is to think of a planetary orbit like throwing a slingshot. The rope is represented as a single line of force which rotates around a centre. If gravity is represented this way then yes aberration is an issue.

The reality is we need to refer to a gravitational field instead of an individual line of force. A gravitational field can be represented as field lines radiating from a centre. An object in orbit around this centre moves from one field line to the next instead of being "confined" to a single (rotating) line of force. The movement of the object in the field cancels out the aberration effects due to gravity.

While this is a crude description (I can't make it any simpler) the full description is given here.

http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/gr-qc/pdf/9909/9909087v2.pdf

Steven
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