My wife and I attended Windycon, a science fiction convention held in the Chicago on November 8-10, 2013. One of the Guests of Honor at the convention was an individual by the name of Steve Collins. The program book listed Mr. Collins as an Attitude Control engineer at NASA's JPL. His current title is Cruise ACS System engineer for the Mars Curiosity Rover. He had also worked on Epoxi, Dawn, Deep Impact, MER, Deep Space One, Galileo and Mars Observer. Here's a photo of Steve (left), sitting close to the Mohawk guy. I believe the photo was shot around time known as the "Seven Minutes of Terror", a memorable moment captured forever as we all watched (and prayed) for Curiosity's safe landing on the surface of Mars.
http://hippynasaguy.tumblr.com/page/3 When I realized that someone with Mr. Collins background, a NASA employee who possesses an innate knowledge of the nature of planetary elliptical orbits and the physics behind how to manipulate orbital paths was attending Windycon I knew I had to at least try to contact him. I wanted to see if I could interest Steve in checking out an unexpected observation I had stumbled across pertaining to a series of orbital computer simulations I had performed earlier this year. I had run countless computer simulations of elliptical orbits where, basically, I had made a satellite orbit a gravitational body. In a special group of simulations I had run I kept the orbital period a non-changing constant while simultaneously altering the eccentricity of the elliptical path taken. The results I got surprised me. It was not what I had expected. As a matter of historical reference I had first officially documented this personal observation out in the public domain of Vortex-l earlier this year, back in June 2013. See the following thread: http://www.mail-archive.com/vortex-l@eskimo.com/msg82652.html But Drat! There I was a Windycon, and I had nothing prepared to give Steve! ...No notes... Nothing! I had to put something together quickly. Late Friday night back in my hotel room I scribbled down a collection of notes and support diagrams in a frantic attempt to describe as clearly as I could the unexpected observation I had made. I believe I had stumbled across an unexpected constant in a certain class of orbital paths that planets or satellites might take. The constant pertained to the observed length of the major axis of the elliptical orbit. Some of my computer simulations appeared to indicate the fact that for all orbital periods that remain constant (same time period) regardless of the eccentricity the orbit might possess the length of the major axis remains the same in all cases. No matter what the eccentricity the orbit my computer simulation produced - anywhere from an eccentricity of 0 (a perfect circle) all the way to the other end, a special case where the eccentricity of 1 was used, (where an orbit with zero angular momentum would cause the satellite to essentially fall straight down towards the center of the planet) ALL of these eccentricities possessed the exact same length in the major axis in the orbital ellipse that would result. I did a lot of checking and double-checking. I couldn't find any flaws in my simulations. It was time to ask for a second opinion. The next day, after the conclusion of another discussion panel Steve was on, I snaked through the fray of admirers and introduced myself. Steve graciously (diplomatically I might also add) listened to my brief but carefully prepared speech. I attempted to lay out as succinctly as I could the unexpected results I got from my computer simulations. I then asked Steve if he or any of his colleges were already aware of this observation I had stumbled upon. I privately surmised that if my simulated observations were correct there was an excellent chance I had simply rediscovered something the JPL folks already knew, and had probably known for decades. Granted, I had not found any documentation out on the internet. But that could simply mean that the information was deeply buried - perhaps due to lack of interest. As best as I could tell Steve did not seem to be aware of the constant I had observed. Fortunately for me, he seemed curious. I asked Steve to please feel free to check my notes and get back to me if he could. And that was that. I was time to stop pestering Mr. Collins and allow him to enjoy the rest of the convention. Several hours later, horror struck me. I suddenly realized I had made a mistake in a section of a simple equation I had written down. The equation, as written, could cause some confusion for someone unfamiliar with what I was trying to reveal pertaining my observation that all the semi-major axis lengths were equal to each other. Rats! I had bungled it! I feared Steve may have already browsed through my notes and had discovered my mistake. If so, I feared Steve would feel inclined to dismiss the rest of my observations as having been derived from an overly enthusiastic SF fan who had not done an adequate amount of research on the matter. "Go away kid, you bother me." - W.C Fields. I was left with a dilemma. It was a simple fix... I needed to strike out one number in my equation. Do I track Steve down and pester him again? Fortunately, as fate would have it, I ran across Steve Sunday afternoon wandering about in the hallway during a lull between programming. He was not being swarmed with admirers. He seemed free. Once again, I reintroduced myself. Steve remembered me. (Oh. oh, I thought! Was that a good thing or a bad thing???) I took a deep breath. Once again I thanked Steve for having graciously taken the time to have accepted my hand delivered notes the other day. I told him I had made a tiny mistake in the only equation I had written out. Steve pulled out the folded page out of his pocket and handed it back to me. I quickly fixed the error and gave it back. I explained what the equation was supposed to represent. I then learned that Steve had read through my hand written notes. He had also detected the mistake (or misleading flaw) I had made in my equation. This told me Steve had essentially gotten the essence of what I had attempted to scribble down. I was relieved. Regardless of whether observations turn out to be correct or not, at least I knew that Steve knew exactly where I was coming from. I ended the conversation stating that if I were to be so lucky to discover the fact that my observation is accurate it only seemed appropriate that the constant be described as Kepler's honorary 4th law of planetary motion. Kepler is only known to have published 3 laws pertaining to planetary motion. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kepler%27s_laws_of_planetary_motion I'm convinced that if Kepler had use of personal computers, a luxury we all take for granted these days, he would have deduced the 4th law observation in about 15 minutes, an observation that took me several years to accidentally stumble across. If Kepler could have figured out the 3rd law of planetary motion, a horribly obscure and turgid law I might add, which states "The square of the orbital period of a planet is directly proportional to the cube of the semi-major axis of its orbit." I mean, for criminy sakes, does that sentence make sense to anyone? Nevertheless, Johannes assembled that painful law all on his own, without the aid of computers or a hand held calculator. And real observations have vindicated it. For the curious, I've created a special link out on one of my websites where you can view a scanned copy of the note I handed to Steve Collins. I also added two more pages showing a collection of elliptical diagrams with the hope that it might make it a little easier for some to visually grasp what I think I may have observed: http://personalpen.orionworks.com/kepler4thlaw.htm There is, of course, much more to this story. There is a huge amount supportive data, including all the regurgitated computer data I generated from countless simulations. All that information needs organized and posted out in the public domain for peer review and independent replication. But that will have to wait. I'm not yet retired. I don't I have much free time on my hands these days. Work, in fact, has been exceedingly exhausting for the past year or so. I'm a Wisconsin state employee. Have been for over 35 years. My working environment has deteriorated, significantly so since Scott Walker came into power. I'm not alone in making that observation. The result has been that I have little energy left at the end of the day to pursue a unique and demanding Muse of this nature. Later, I hope. We'll have our little affair later, when I retire. One final comment: As time goes by maybe I'll eventually discover the sobering fact that most, if not all of my elliptical planetary motion observations are incorrect. Or maybe if I'm lucky I'll learn they were simply in need of some serious revisions. Being wrong about how we think Nature behaves is more often the norm then the exception. It's the risk (and adventure) we have all signed up to play. In the meantime, this 1's 4 u, Johannes. ...did I get it right? Regards, Steven Vincent Johnson svjart.OrionWorks.com www.zazzle.com/orionworks tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/newvortex/
