The advance of perihelion of Mercury is entirely predicted- (so called "anomaly")

Right on cue, completely anal retentive kookdancing queen, Dickless
Davie the "irrelevaant" Ignoranus, whined and
tholed like the antagonistic arsehole that he is:
Androcles writes:

Why anyone would use 100 Earth years as a measure for Mercury
is simply amazing.

What's allegedly amazing about it? Lots of people use the
astronomical unit as a measure for Mercury's semimajor axis,
for example. That's another unit derived from the use of
the Earth as a reference.

Which you hallucinate to be constant and not just another approximation.

Classic erroneous presupposition of any hallucination on my part.
The astronomical unit is a constant, by definition.

So is the speed of light, except it isn't constant.

In a vacuum it is.

Is the dust bag full or empty, Tholoon?

"we establish by definition that the ``time'' required by light to travel
from A to B equals the ``time'' it requires to travel from B to A." -Albert
****wit Einstein.

Classic erroneous presupposition of the existence of anyone with that
name.

Don't try to tell me it takes the same time to get an answer back from
Cassini as it did to make the request!

You have some evidence to the contrary? And what does that have to
do with the constancy of the astronomical unit?

False definitions are bull****.

Then stop using them.

Hence you are confused.

Classic illogic on your part.

The orbit of the Earth, of course, is not constant, nor has anybody
claimed otherwise.

Define "orbit".

Is that the only word you don't understand from the previous sentence?

Is it from aphelion to aphelion or synodic?

What does your question have to do with the constancy of the astronomical
unit?

Earth too precesses, axially as well.

So what? Doesn't affect the constancy of the astronomical unit. Yet
another non sequitur statement from you. I can understand why you're
trying to obfuscate the situation, considering that you can't defend
the statement you made at the top of the article.

Strange as it may be to you, Earth has a moon, Luna and the two revolve
about a barycentre.

Non sequitur. We're talking about the astronomical unit.

Non sequitur,

Classic unsubstantiated and erroneous claim.

we are discussing precession of Mercury's longitude of
perihelion., see thread title.

You're not ready to discuss that topic. Much in the same way that
students need to learn algebra before they tackle calculus, you need
to understand basic celestial mechanics before you tackle the precession
of Mercury's line of apsides. That you don't understand basic celestial
mechanics was illustrated by the statement at the top of the article,
namely your amazement that anyone would use a century as a measure for
Mercury. Of course, you've not stated what measurement unit you would
use, but no matter what your preferred choice is, you'll look as silly
as someone saying that inches are okay to use, but meters are not.

Hence you are confused.

Classic unsubstantiated and erroneous claim, and rather ironic, coming
from the person who is confused.

Earth has many semimajor axes.

One for every epoch of osculation and for every origin of the reference
frame. So what? Doesn't make the astronomical unit a variable. To use
an example, just because the circumference of your chest varies during
your breathing cycle doesn't mean the inch is a variable.

Good example.

Glad to have found something that you can understand.

According to NIST,
"The meter is the length of the path travelled by light in vacuum during a
time interval of 1/299 792 458 of a second."

Yes; it got to the point where the number of transitions between two
hyperfine levels in the cesium atom could be measured with quite high
precision, so with the speed of light defined to be a constant with
the indicated value, the meter could be specified more exactly that
way than to rely on the length of some standard metal bar stored in a
climate controlled environment in some Paris bureau. Just how
accurately would the temperature of that environment need to be kept
to avoid thermal expansion or contraction of that metal bar at the
level of one part in a billion?

Hence the metre *IS* variable.

Classic unsubstantiated and erroneous claim.

Inches are still Imperial, thank goodness.

So what? There are 39.37 inches per meter. The conversion should be
trivial to anyone that can multiply or divide.

Prove it, if you think you can, Dickless.

My breathing means both major and minor axes of my chest
are variable,

Irrelevant, given that the issue is the alleged variability of the
measurement unit. The fact that your chest changes size doesn't mean
that the inch is variable, or the meter is variable, or the astronomical
unit is variable.

and you are confused.

Classic repeated unsubstantiated and erroneous claim.

Astronomical unit
The basic unit of length in the solar system. The astronomical unit (AU) is
also used to a limited extent for interstellar distances through the
definition of the parsec (1 pc = 206,265 AU). It is nearly equal to the mean
distance a between the center of mass of the Sun and the center of mass of
the Earth-Moon system (a = 1.00 000 23 AU)

Nothing in that statement to indicate variability.

You are horribly confused.

Classic repeated unsubstantiated and erroneous claim, and rather ironic,
coming from the person who is horribly confused.

Like you, Tholoon?

You'll be telling me next the length of a Rolls Royce Silver Cloud is
1.5 Morris Minors.

Classic unsubstantiated and erroneous claim.

You'll be telling me next the Earth-Sun distance is 1 AU.

Classic unsubstantiated and erroneous claim. On the contrary, the
Earth-Sun distance is variable. The Earth's orbital eccentricity
is almost 2 percent.

Oops, you already did.

Classic unsubstantiated and erroneous claim. Also suffering from reading
comprehension problems? You must be, given that I made no such statement.

Classic unsubstantiated and erroneous hallucination.

I'm well aware that I'm hallucinating, given that I made no such
statement. No need to tell me about my hallucination.

No need for you to tell us either, Dickless.

The mass of Mercury is often
expressed in units of Earth masses.

You'll be telling me next the mass of an elephant is 2.4 hippopotami.

Classic unsubstantiated and erroneous claim. However, it's quite
common to say things like "this book weighs twice as much as that
book".

Non sequitur,

Classic unsubstantiated and erroneous claim.

we are discussing precession of Mercury's longitude of
perihelion.

You're not ready to discuss that topic. Much in the same way that
students need to learn algebra before they tackle calculus, you need
to understand basic celestial mechanics before you tackle the precession
of Mercury's line of apsides. That you don't understand basic celestial
mechanics was illustrated by the statement at the top of the article,
namely your amazement that anyone would use a century as a measure for
Mercury. Of course, you've not stated what measurement unit you would
use, but no matter what your preferred choice is, you'll look as silly
as someone saying that inches are okay to use, but meters are not.

That makes "that book" the unit of mass measurement. Or
you might hear John Doe say that he's twice as old as his sister
Jane Doe.

He's a confused fool,

On what basis do you claim that John Doe is confused?

then, because he wasn't last year and he won't be tomorrow.

Irrelevant, given that he didn't make the statement last year or
tomorrow.

That makes Jane Doe the unit of age measurement. Or
you might here an administrator say that his salary is five times
that of the delivery boy, which makes the salary of the delivery
boy the unit of salary measurement. The everyday world is replete
with such examples. The problem with your example is that it doesn't
refer to specific objects, but rather to a collection that varies
within the collection, and therefore your example is ambiguous.

That's what *I* am saying, your definitions are ambiguous.

Classic unsubstantiated and erroneous claim. The first occurrence of
"ambiguous" in this exchange was mine, and in reference to your
example.

According to you, 1 AU = 1.00 000 23 AU.

Classic unsubstantiated and erroneous claim. Where did I allegedly
make such a statement?

According to me,
The advance of perihelion of Mercury is entirely predicted
by Newtonian Mechanics to within 43 arc seconds per century
(= 415 orbits)

The problem is the "to within". Newtonian mechanics is quite
good for most purposes, but not good enough to explain everything.

which is

415 orbits * 360 degrees = 149400 degrees
149400 degrees * 60 arc minutes = 8964000 arc minutes
8964000 arc minutes * 60 arc seconds = 537840000 arc seconds.

43
-------------------------------- x 100 = 0.00000799494273389855719%
537840000

and Einstein with his 4-figure log tables and 3-figure sliderule
could not be that accurate.

On what basis do you claim that Einstein's math was restricted
to log tables and slide rules? Didn't they have pencil and
paper back in those days? How DID he manage to balance his
bank account? After all, if you're dealing with thousands of
dollars and keeping track of it down to the penny, that's SIX
digits. You don't suppose Einstein might have reached tens of
thousands of dollars in his lifetime? My god, that's SEVEN
digits. His 4-figure log tables and 3-figure sliderule couldn't
be that accurate.

Clearly, you're isn't, Dickless.

Are you really that stupid?

Talk about confusion,

What alleged confusion? Does the use of a solar mass for the
masses of other stars, instead of kilograms, also confuse you?

Ok, so use the elephant as the unit of mass and we'll soon see who is
confused.

There is no such thing as "the" elephant. There are lots of them,
with a wide variety of masses, therefore your example is ambiguous.

You've understood my point;

On the contrary, I pointed out why your example is ambiguous.

even if you don't like it you'll have to live with it.

I'm dealing with my confusion right now.

Go deal with your confusion elsewhere, Tholoon.

You had better get used to the fact that there are multiple
time units in use, multiple distance units in use, multiple
mass units in use, and so on.

All of which can lead to rounding errors which accumulate,
resulting in an UNOBSERVED 43.1 arc seconds per
118.621186 Jovian orbits.

Non sequitur.

**** you and your non sequitur crap.

Classic erroneous presupposition that my statement is "crap".

Crap.

Classic reliance of foul language on your part, though that
is a common strategy utilized by those on the losing end of
a discussion.

Like you, Dickless?

The discussion is about the variety of measurement
units available, not rounding errors.

No it ****ing well isn't,

Then why did you express amazement that anyone would use a
century as a measure for Mercury? If the discussion isn't
about that, then you have nobody to blame for taking the
discussion off-topic but yourself.

it's about the advance of perihelion of Mercury.

You're not ready to discuss that topic. Much in the same way that
students need to learn algebra before they tackle calculus, you need
to understand basic celestial mechanics before you tackle the precession
of Mercury's line of apsides. That you don't understand basic celestial
mechanics was illustrated by the statement at the top of the article,
namely your amazement that anyone would use a century as a measure for
Mercury. Of course, you've not stated what measurement unit you would
use, but no matter what your preferred choice is, you'll look as silly
as someone saying that inches are okay to use, but meters are not.

One can round regardless of
the choice of measurement unit, even when using your preferred
choice of measurement unit, whatever that might be.

Non sequitur.

Classic unsubstantiated and erroneous claim.

You had better get used to the fact that you are confused.

Classic erroneous presupposition. Rather ironic, coming from the
one who is confused.

You are so erroneously confused you don't know what the subject is.

Classic unsubstantiated and erroneous claim.

See thread title.

See your statement at the top of the article. Then realize that
your statement was made before my involvement in the discussion.
Either your statement is on topic, in which case my subsequent
discussion is also on topic, or you are the one to blame for
taking the discussion off topic.

4.31 arc seconds per Earth year with Mercury's sidereal period
of 88 Earth days and 365.25 days per year

Older equations for the values of various astronomical parameters
used the Besselian century as the time argument. Now many of those
equations have been recast to use the Julian century instead. The
coefficients to the time arguments had to be changed for the units
to be consistent.

Note: no response.

Non sequitur,

Classic unsubstantiated and erroneous claim.

no response needed...

On what basis do you make that claim?

but I'll give you one.

One what? One inch? One meter? One astronomical unit? One dollar?
One kilogram?

****head.

Classic invective, as expected from someone who lacks a logical
argument.

In other words you don't deny you are a ****head, Dickless.

(or is it 366.25 sidereal days),

Where did that come from?

There is exactly one more sidereal day than solar days in a year.

On what basis do you make that claim?

Common knowledge to astronomers,

Many astronomers know that there are multiple ways to define the
year. You didn't specify which of those you were referring to.

something you are obviously not.

Classic hallucination on your part. Rather ironic, coming from the
person who didn't specify the type of year.

Rough figures: Earth turns 360 degrees in 23 hours, 56 minutes.

Non sequitur. The issue is the ambiguity of your usage of "year"
when you claimed that there is exactly one more sidereal day than
solar days in a year.

The other 4 minutes it uses to turn one more degree and face the sun,
the degree it used to travel around the sun.

Non sequitur. The issue is the ambiguity of your usage of "year"
when you claimed that there is exactly one more sidereal day than
solar days in a year.

4 minutes * 365 = 1460

1460/60 = 24 hours.

Non sequitur. The issue is the ambiguity of your usage of "year"
when you claimed that there is exactly one more sidereal day than
solar days in a year.

Did you know the Moon turns on its own axis once a month?

Non sequitur. The issue is the ambiguity of your usage of "year"
when you claimed that there is exactly one more sidereal day than
solar days in a year.

13 revolutions a year, only 12 of which face Earth.
What happened to the other Lunar day?

Non sequitur. The issue is the ambiguity of your usage of "year"
when you claimed that there is exactly one more sidereal day than
solar days in a year.

You haven't even specified
the type of year! Could be the tropical year, the sidereal year,
or the anomalistic year, for examle.

I didn't have to,

Classic unsubstantiated and erroneous claim.

I was pointing out an ambiguity that you whined was nonsense.

Classic erroneous presupposition of any whining on my part, but
glad you realize that your ambiguity was nonsense.

You didn't know that, huh?

You're the one with an ambiguous statement, and you're blaming me?
Talk about being confused!

If I point out ambiguities that you call "nonsense" then yes, I'm
blaming you.

The key word here is "if". You weren't the one pointing out the
ambiguity of use of the word "year". Rather, I was the one who
pointed it out to you.

That's your confusion.

Classic unsubstantiated and erroneous claim. Rather ironic to boot.

Arrogant ****head.

I'm well aware that I'm an "arrogant ****head". No need to tell
me about it.

I'm glad you agree, Tholoon, you arrogant ****head.

the whole issue is riddled with data loss and fiddle factors.

Nonsense.

****head.

Appropriate signature line you have there.

For you, yes.

You're the one who used it, not me.

What's your next new name going to be after I plonk you?

Famous Last Words. You can't defend your statements logically,
so you threaten to run away. Be my guest.

Dickless bravely runs away.