Update and Comments about An Experiment to Measure The Absolute Motion of the Earth

Lance Osadchey

Update

I was asked to respond to reader inquiries and to provide more details on the velador setup described in An Experiment to Measure The Absolute Motion of the Earth (The Citizen Scientist, 2 March 2007).

First, I wish to caution everyone to be careful with the components. A responsible adult should be in charge of the construction and use of the velador. In particular, the laser and camera are potentially hazardous.

Camera Precautions. It is best to have a trained technician remove the lens from the digital camera. You must be aware of hazards associated with digital cameras. For instance, there is a large electrolytic capacitor in flash-equipped cameras. The terminals of this capacitor and the wires leading to them must not be touched. To do so may discharge the capacitor through your body, causing a potentially dangerous shock. The LCD has an unpleasant liquid in it and, if broken, the liquid can leak out. Other problems abound. I did my own work but used an early digital camera.

Laser Precautions. The laser I use is a red diode pointer laser, and it seems to work fine. I wear laser glasses designed to block the wavelength of light emitted by the laser. Even though the power level is about 5 milliwatts, this can be bad for the eyes. The lens of the eye can concentrate the laser beam and focus it on a very small section of the retinal photoreceptors. Therefore, never look into the beam of a pointer laser. Never point a pointer laser toward another person or a reflective object. Having a dog or cat chase the beam is not good as the beam might enter the animal's eyes.

There are 3 major groups of design to a velador: stationary, vertical and horizontal. Here I shall just go over the stationary setup in which a modified digital camera is mounted to one end of a bar that has a laser and directional controller mounted on the opposite end as shown in Fig. 1.

Figure 1. This schematic view of the apparatus shows the location of the camera and laser.

Bar

I use a 3-meter wood bar. It's inexpensive, durable and easily drilled and shaped. I have used a 3-meter iron hollow bar with similar results.

Camera

The camera is a 2-megapixel unit with the lens removed so the CCD can be directly illuminated by the laser beam. The basic functionality of the camera is intact, so image numbering and storage is handled by the camera. The memory card can be easily downloaded into a computer. Figure 2 shows the modified camera attached to one end of the bar.

Figure 2. The lens of the camera has been removed to expose the CCD array to the laser beam.

Laser

A simple inexpensive red (635 nm) diode pointer laser is used. I tried a He Ne laser, but it produced a big reddish-orange basketball blur on the CCD. I could not make measurements of this spot, so I returned the laser. A friend at Dartmouth later told me some lenses would have made the image smaller.

Figure 3. The laser pointed is mounted on an adjustable holder so it can be directed directly toward the camera's CCD array.

Directional Holder for the Laser

This is a must. Before I got a photographic camera holder and Bogen 210 adjustable mount, I spent long hours trying to point the laser directly at the CCD. The series of images in the original article was done by luck in getting the laser to hit the CCD. The adjustable mount can move the laser in the x and y directions as well as skew the laser if needed.

After this, just mount the setup securely in a vice, clamp or holder and record images.

Figure 4. This photograph shows the apparatus depicted schematically in Fig. 1.

One site criticized the setup as being crude and homemade. Did Newton first study momentum with a particle accelerator? Did Galileo look at the stars and planets first with the Hubble telescope? This why this topic is presented in The Citizen Scientist. It's amateur science and needs peer review.

Reader Comments and Author Responses

Comments by George E. Hrabovsky

I wanted to make a few observations about the experiment described in the article, "An Experiment to Measure The Absolute Motion of the Earth" by Lance Osadchey.

1) Reversing the method of calculation as written, the drift measured was approximately 33.5 microns in 10 nanoseconds. This is a beam accuracy of 33.5 microns over 3 meters, or around 11 microns over 1 meter, or about 1 in 10,000. This is an astonishing level of accuracy. This is like shooting at a target a mile away and coming within six inches every time.

2) I see no tests of the accuracy of the aiming system. This leads to the question of whether or not the data can be extracted from the mechanical noise of the experimental apparatus. I would like to see some sort of error analysis for the system.

3) I would also like to see some sort of data on the relaxation time of the elements in the CCD. Since we are talking about 10 nanosecond time intervals, I doubt that the CCD elements are able to clear within that interval. I would like to see some data about this phenomena, since the laser is exciting the elements that the beam actually strikes; this causes a lot of heating, too. There is no real estimation of these effects on the experiment.

4) How precise is the beam size for the laser source? Does it change in size? Could this change in size be within 34 microns over 10 nanoseconds? Assuming a 5 mm average diameter, 33.5 microns would be about 3 in 50, or 6% error in the beam size. For a laser pointer this does not seem unreasonable.

5) What are these lenses that are being used and how accurate are they?

Unfortunately, without these factors being accounted for there is no reason to accept these results as anything other than experimental noise. I would like to see a careful analysis of the apparatus, including the mechanical stability of the system over the time intervals being discussed. Perhaps a photograph of the apparatus would also be good.

Let me be clear, I doubt that this experiment will yield positive results in the light of careful data analysis. Unfortunately, no such analysis has been performed. It is the responsibility of the experimenter to provide such data before their work can be considered as acceptable. After all, the point of an experiment is to control as many factors as possible and make accurate measurements. Accuracy is far more important than precision, in my opinion. After all, you can be precisely wrong.

George E. Hrabovsky
President, MAST

Response to George E. Hrabovsky

I have on the web site some information on calibration and rapid push pictures to check out reproducibility. I did find the rapid push gave good results, and I now use just the push shutter to take an image as the self timer release did not do better.

How I use the apparatus: In a typical horizontal rotation, I start at north and continue at 30 degree increments to east then to south then to west and back to north. From one image to the other is about 1 to 2 minutes. Some times I wait 5 minutes between shots.

On the stationary, if I can do 30-minute interval shots for 24+ hours, I am lucky.

The 10 nanoseconds is the time I use for the light to leave the laser and get to the CCD using a 3 meter bar.

The laser spot on the CCD is about 150 pixels in diameter. It does change in size and shape, and I believe this has to do with the velocity. If the velocity is straight on it is more round, and if from the side it is smeared. Also, at times the spot is knobby, again I think due to velocity changes. I measure to the center of each spot as best as I can, but this part of the job is why that guy gets the big bucks. I can usually come within 3 pixels on remeasuring, and do not ask me how. What I REALLY need is a program to do this time consuming and nerve racking job. I have tried several, but, since I do not know COBOL or C++ programming, I can not get the programs to work. Just recently a friend at Dartmouth has told me Sony has just such a program, so I am trying to get that one for the difficult work. See the 10 push study on the web site. The peripheral points graphed are the edges of the spot. The center is the 10 rapid push spot centers graphed.

The only lens is in the laser at the 10 foot distance. I do not like the idea of a neutral density filter or focusing lens between the laser and the CCD.

The web site has lots of photos, and I can provide more if desired.

This is a pilot program, and I would love to see a real good setup with a smaller laser beam, a non bendable ceramic bar, or optical table floating on an air cushion, all enclosed in a environmentally controlled vacuum chamber with automatic data taking every second for years and automatic data analysis with the 3-dimensional setup. I checked with Eastman Kodak on a nice large chip with automatic capabilities and they wanted $60,000 US for it, and I had to provide the liquid helium to keep it cold.

So far there is no data analysis other than graphing and observation. I have some data from studies I have completed, and if you wish, could send you several, to analyze.

The web site address is www.lanceosadchey.com. See also www.laqu.bravepages.com.

While thinking about Dr. Osadchey’s experiment, I was struck by two things. The first was the final velocity calculated for the earth by his experiment. The second regards his experimental apparatus itself.

First, according to the work of Larry McNish at the RASC Calgary Centre, the earth’s total velocity through space is more like 600 m/s with respect to the "stationary" cosmic background radiation. He also has a table of the various velocities that states that the earth’s rotation contributes between 0 and .46 km/s, the earth’s orbit around the sun roughly 30 km/s, and the sun’s orbit through the galaxy at 200 km/s.

One can see that the dominant contributors dwarf the earth’s orbital and rotational velocities. Instead of the 6.7 km/s and 0.1mm CCD deflection measured by this experiment, it would seem that a much larger deflection (100 times as large) would be seen if one were actually measuring the earth’s total velocity.

As for the apparatus, it seems plausible that by rotating this rigid beam during the experiment, one could introduce a ~0.1 millimeter deflection between the two ends of the beam, which would than account for the difference in the positions of the incident light on the CCD. One suggestion would be to leave the beam in one position and take measurements over a 24-hour period. In this way, the rigid beam is more stationary, but the rotation of the earth will provide measurement in two dimensions over that period of time. Adding a second beam perpendicular to the first and measuring through 24 hours would provide data in three dimensions. Given that the earth’s rotational contribution to the total is so small, it should not have much effect on the measurements.

Further, extending the length of the light path would also improve the signal to noise ratio. By eliminating the need to rotate the apparatus, one can eliminate the need for a rigid beam and instead just require a solidly anchored light source and CCD on opposite sides of the room.

Aaron Kammerer


Response to Aaron Kammerer

Due to pixel measurement variations I can not measure the approximate 0.25 km/sec rotational velocity at my latitude of about 43 degrees north.

On the plot I posted, roughly 7 km/sec showed up.

On a vertical plot I got about 200 km/sec. See the web site for a vertical plot.

I have never gotten over 200 km/sec but it would be nice to know if refinement and documentation of the concept indeed show what I think it does, because this would be a real fine tool for science. Perhaps the microwave velocity reflects the expansion of space and not of our galactic velocity.

Let me say one thing about velocity measurement with the velador. One measures velocity in the plane of rotation of the velador in the horizontal rotation and vertical rotation setup. Consider just one velocity vector we want to measure. If the vector is in the axis of the rotation, the velocity will not show up. The desired orientation is to have the plane of the velador pointing directly in the direction of the vector. Directly at the vector gives all the velocity with applied orientation, and in the rotation axis gives none of the velocity. We are measuring changes on a 2-dimensional screen. Also, for best results, the screen is rotated from one side to the other with the plane of rotation pointing in the motion direction. This may seem a bit confusing, and more info is on the web site.

I used this as an example on the plot. Because the plane of rotation was not exactly in the direction of the sun's velocity, only 7 km/sec showed up. This is a geometrical value based on orientation.

I have done several long term stationary studies, one of which is on the web site. See what you think of it, as I will not tell you now what I think it shows as these are like puzzles to figure out. We can discuss this later.

Yes, ideally 2 or 3 beams would provide more complete information to figure the exact velocity vector, which I think is a tensor. Also simultaneous measurements of each bar would be desirable.

I have done studies using a 4 foot, 5 foot, 6 foot, 10 foot and 20 feet setup. The 20-feet setup ran the beam off the CCD as the bars positions were changed. The others gave corresponding measurements when the length of the light transit time was used to figure the velocity.