Alpha Institute for Advanced Studies

d squared u / d theta squared + u – delta u squared = 1 /alpha

of EGR is given by Marion and Thornton on pp. 268 ff of their third edition of “Classical Dynamics” (Harcourt 1988). I used this as a course book as a full professor of physics, with good student reaction to the course. It consists of several approximations using arbitrary trial functions and they just ignore one term which they call a “small periodic disturbance of the normal Keplerian motion”. So they ignore an inconvenient result of EGR that is not actually observed in any orbit. Einstein himself did something similar on Nov. 22nd 1915, and was immediately criticised by Schwarzschild on Dec. 22nd, 1915. This makes me very uneasy about Einstein’s own character. There was certainly pressure on him to produce a result of EGR that could be measured, because very few accepted EGR at the time. The starting point of MArion and Thornton (their Eq. (7,73 of the third edition) is exactly the same lagrangian equation that is used in UFT 193 (in prep), so they cannot be correct because the true and stable precessing ellipse gives a force law that is the sum of an inverse square and inverse cube term. Einstein tried to force a precessing ellipse out of a force law that is the sum of an inverse square and inverse fourth term. That is just not possible, yet it has been forced on science for nearly a century.