Robittybob1

@EdEarl - you could imagine a huge row over who is going to do this and who is paying for this but at least some new ideas are still possible.

@Janus - thanks again. The key word that I learned from that was the "focus". We can change the lines and angles but we never seem to change the focus. In your rocket orbiting the Earth the focus I presume was the gravitational center of the Earth and that never moves for the mass of the Earth is so large compared to the mass of the orbiting body. But in the case of binary stars elliptically orbiting and one losing or gaining velocity from some external force the focus would probably move for the focus then would be the barycenter. It is harder to imagine what could alter the elliptical orbit of a binary star without causing a mass change as well but can you think in terms of a change in position of the focus as well? @ everyone - Have you ever dealt with a situation where the focus moves as well?

When David Tua misspelt awesome he tried to lie saying it was Orson not awesome. That seemed unethical to us in NZ. David Tua - Wheel Of Fortune - O For Awesome

You are one of the better debaters. Maybe I'm too direct. YT take it or leave it. By the time you have seen every YT on a topic you have formed quite an informed opinion.

@Janus - If you had to give a reason for that lesser change in alignment of the perigee what would you put that down to? "Ratios depend on the resultant forces ....." It was these forces that were like the quantised components. Either the force vector adds to drag or GE or KE, and the whole shape of the orbit is changed with even the slightest change of force. OK it might be impossible to measure this change but logically it will change. Could the 2:1:1 ratios still be maintained even when the forces need resolving into the individual components? I know you say they aren't but how can I be convinced of that?

The only time I don't post what I write is if there is a glitch and the post does not submit properly. I hate writing the same stuff twice.

Thanks - I'm listening to McPherson ATM. I think he is wrong so far but he may just be right. It needs a bit of research. It is unusual like "we are all doomed to extinction so we should all live a life of excellence for life is short". Does that make sense?

Is this true Swansont?

Thanks for trying to explain that to me. I remember looking at the scientific paper Pavel quoted, it was 26 pages of undecipherable mathematical equations that I bet Pavel did not know how to use either, and yet it was some sort of answer. That was like saying go and become a professor, it was too much and off the topic. Of course I haven't got the capacity to read and understand that and I made that clear. I intend to do this if possible.

I'm not sure if your original analogy went quite that far.

Exactly I came back on to the forum to discuss science, no more pointless analysis. I agree fully.

So they are neutral wrt The Angry Intellect. That hardly deserves a plus 1. So it must be the prior statement "I'd settle for a bit more intellect and a bit less angry, myself." well I'll say the same if it gets me rep points. I'd settle for a bit more intellect and a bit less angry too!

On the forum you get the same chance of having a small team (some help and others peer review). Progress is slow but it still isn't impossible.

You've given points to a post that doesn't even seem to make sense! What does the last sentence even mean "Though, I'm admittedly neutral on The."? PS: I see it has 3 points and I still can't understand what is being said.

But isn't it a bit more like that the menu was offering this and then being told later it can't be done? We order but the dish is not up to expectations and the bill gets higher the more you argue. I read that there are people who are reading the forum but not posting, (whether they are registered or not doesn't matter I think you can still read it if you aren't registered) who appreciate the scientific value of what we discuss. That was quite encouraging but we don't want no discussion at all and just links back to Wikipedia. It takes a lot of effort to give to the forum, look at Janus or others who are so correct in what they say, taking 30 minutes of their day to knock up a post. It is the effort to post that needs to be appreciated too. OK I might be wrong or right in some of the things I say but debate the point. If you only want good science you might as well just read Wikipedia and watch YouTube.

Thanks Janus. That shift in 3.6 degrees is a type of rotation of the semimajor axis of the new elliptical. Which way did the shift occur? "Perigee the point in the orbit of the moon or a satellite at which it is nearest to the earth" So we were slowing down, so you aren't going to climb so high, so you will turn earlier. If that logic is correct the angle shift is back against the direction of travel. Was that right? The apogee : the point in outer space where an object traveling around the Earth (such as a satellite or the moon) is farthest away from the Earth. So the apogee is reached earlier in the orbit.

OK but all things fall at similar speeds don't they? Hammer and feather on the moon fell at the same rate, so what difference does it matter about the size. A comet could be the source of those meteorites, but they don't slow down just because the comet broke up. I was using the speeds of other objects to get a indication of the speed of these meteors. So some are very small and some make it all the way to the ground and they are called meteorites. There was no indication in the OP on the maximum size of a meteor as long as it burned up.

A bit like Russian Roulette. Take the last warning point received is it even possible to identify where my mistake occurred? I had told the forum I was getting worn out a day or so prior. It might be #193 where I was answering Pavelcherepan, then the next post #194 Mordred seemed to take offense. In #195 I say to Mordred I had not heard from him (on the topic). Which may seem odd but that day to me (I'm on a different times than northern hemisphere) all he had posted were things I'd consider were "red herrings" nearly hijacking the thread. Next post was the moderator note to which I replied in a PM. Immediately after that my warning points score changed. A day later I find an email explaining what the warning point was about. I would have liked to reply (but inwardly I was resigned to defeat) but the message was on my gmail email and I'm not sure if I can reply from my private email back to this site. But did that really deserve warning points I was being worn out by Pavel and Mordred with all their red herring stuff, yet they must have reported me for something and I lose. In this case I needed Mordred and he had agreed to help me, so it feels rather counter productive to report him. I don't know if you realise how difficult the situation was. Basically there was no argument between us, we were all getting along quite fine, we just had to thrash out the science. Science where there was only the one paper which had some formulas in it and we were going to apply those formulas to the Sun. I feel had you (Swansont) been part of the discussion we would have stayed on track as we've done in the past. (Yet from memory there was a warning point associated with one of our debates as well, applied by someone else not by you.) When I looked up on the forum for how warning points worked there seemed to be indications of some time given between the moderator note and the application of warning points but in this case there was no practical time given.

Search for that calculator http://impact.ese.ic.ac.uk/ImpactEffects/ is one like what I was remembering. It had this comment beside the entry box for "Impact Velocity" - "This is the velocity of the projectile before it enters the atmosphere. The minimum impact velocity on Earth is 11 km/s. Typical impact velocities are 17 km/s for asteroids and 51 km/s for comets. The maximum Earth impact velocity for objects orbiting the sun is 72 km/s" So that seems to give some indication that the speed the meteor had prior to being drawn by the Earth will have a major bearing on the momentum. From the above file search this will be indicative of it source.

OK - I am still on the forum and I'm not banned yet, so just to test it out I will report other posters in the future. Do all the moderators operate similarly? [Must admit it doesn't feel right to even say I'm going to do this.]

I tried to find science papers discussing meteors etc and the only fact that seemed logical was that comets, asteroids and near Earth objects go past Earth faster if they come from further out in the Solar System (longer orbits) ranging from 20 - 30 km/sec. I couldn't find any that detailed the impact speed with the Earth but there was a site on the internet where you could enter masses and trajectory into it and it would give a resulting impact speed. Does anyone have that site?

What I said was "Over the years I have felt it was actually detrimental to complain for the moderators would prefer no one discussing the "supernatural" in any way". I wasn't just implying this was the case on this forum. I might have reported spam and the like but I cannot remember reporting posts on this forum. I would be reluctant to do so from experiences on other sites. It becomes tricky then for if I falter just the once and get warning points and I complain that I was provoked I'm told "you should have reported them". I feel as though I'd lose either way. I don't envy the job of a moderator, how do you take a moderate path through this situation? No doubt it is the easiest thing just to get rid of those that being reported just to make life easy. Would I do the same? No I would concentrate on those who have an agenda. I see there are a few like that.

On the news yesterday was something like an admission from the BBC that Jimmy Savile was too important to take down. Even when they were told he was abusing kids they did nothing about it. Not quite the clip I was after but the word "banned" is used so it is appropriate.

But my point was more about the etiquette of the discussion, should hijacking and abuse be tolerated even if the topic is considered slightly left-field. Argue the points scientifically not using tactics that would be frowned on in other threads. I went across to the thread that I was leading as the OP and all that and I could have pulled up many instances to prove my point but it would be suicide on the forum if I actually raised them (that is my fear at least, so I'm not willing to tempt fate), really it just can't be done. So it also must be difficult as a moderator to pull them up too, you've got to look after the forum, not so much look after the OP. So we see a lot of "king hit" type posts where a statement is made in the OP and that is the last we'll see of the OP. That is not my style I prefer to stand my ground and debate but it takes its emotional toll. But that too is seen as sign of weakness and a time for the others to pounce. When someone is down, drained "you've got him, finish him off while you've got the chance". Have you ever experienced that? The pre-game strategy would be to look for weaknesses to exploit in the opposing team. That is sport and war and science forums in general.

Thanking you again for such a detailed answer. Only thought that bugging me a bit is if one has established an elliptical orbit (from the circular orbit) and you hit the object again later with a second drag force has the orbit still got the characteristics of an elliptical orbit albeit a different set of parameters? So the position of the perihelion could be shifted, that would be like a type of precession if it had some regularity to it, so the position of the aphelion and perihelion would change but the orbit would still be elliptical. Precession may be the allowance for ratios other than 1:1 and 2:1:1, that is just a guess mind you for it is way beyond anything I have ever calculated.