C. Y.

Lo
Applied and Pure Research Institute
7 Taggart Drive, Unit E, Nashua,
NH 03060, USA
Committee for the Nobel Prize in Physics
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
comments@nobelprize.org, technical@nobelprize.org
info@nobel.se, copyright@nobelprize.org,

Comments on the 1993 Press Release of awarding the Nobel Prize in Physics

Dear Sir:

This email informs you that there are serious theoretical errors in your 1993 news release.
First, I want to make clear that I whole heartily appreciate awarding the Nobel Prize Physics for
1993 jointly to Russell A. Hulse and Joseph H. Taylor, Jr. for the discovery of a new type of pulsar, a
discovery that has opened up new possibilities for the study of gravitation. Nevertheless, I also believe
that it is my duty as a scientist to inform you that the related subsequent 1993 news release contents
serious errors that will jeopardize correct understanding of Einstein’s theory and future developments
of gravitational theory. Thus, it is necessary to rectify these errors as soon as possible. It is simply not
true, “So far, Einstein's theory has passed the tests with flying colours.” Apparently, your committee
was ill-advised by incompetent advisors, who failed in understanding non-linear equations.
In fact, as suspected by A. Gullstrand [1], a 1921 member of your committee, Einstein’s equation
does not have any solution that can be used to justify his claim of the perihelion motion of Mercury as
a small general-relativity contribution since Einstein failed to show that his approach is mathematically
a valid approximation. Einstein [2], who does not have enough background in mathematics, claimed in
his 1923 Nobel lecture that his considerations led to the theory of gravity which yields the Newtonian
theory as a first approximation and furthermore it yields the motion of the perihelion of Mercury, the
deflection of light by the sun, …. However, he did not respond to those questions on perihelion of
Mercury raised by Gullstrand. Although it yields the Newtonian theory as a first approximation for a
testing particle, in general relativity unfortunately there is actually no solution for a two-body problem
just as Gullstrand [1] suspected.
Nevertheless, most peers of Einstein, who also have inadequate background in mathematics,
believed Einstein was right and Gullstrand was too critical. The root of these errors is that they do not
understand non-linear equations. Nevertheless, this issue was finally resolved in my paper of 1995 [3]
published in the Astrophysical Journal, in which I proved that it is impossible for Einstein’s equation to
have a two-body solution or a physical gravitational wave solution. The editor-in-chief of this journal
was Subramanyan Chandrasekha, who has very strong background in both mathematics and physics.
However, this paper was essentially ignored by current theorists and they probably failed to read it.
Apparently these findings are surprising to many since they are in direct conflict with what have
been derived from the linearized Einstein equation [4, 5]. They are used to that a weak solution can
always be obtained if the source term is weak enough. However, for a non-linear field equation, a weak
solution may not exist independent of the strength of the source [6-10] although this is inconsistent
with physical principles such as the principle of causality [11]. This is possible because the field
equation may not be valid for such a situation.
 Unfortunately, although the static solutions give accurate predictions, there are neither bounded
gravitational wave solutions nor bounded dynamic solutions for the Einstein equation. Thus,
linearization is not a valid mathematical procedure of the Einstein equation for the dynamic cases
although linearization is proven to be valid for the static cases [4, 5]. Because of inadequate
background beyond linear equation in mathematics, many theorists simply cannot understand that the
procedure of linearization is not valid for a dynamic case [11]. Thus, it seems, many theorists in the
field of gravitation simply do not have the ability of self-rectification. They need help.
To prove the above statements rigorously would be complicated and thus not practical in an email.
Some may simply do not have enough patience even if they have the ability to understand them. To
save time, taking a short cut by showing a simple example that illustrates this invalidity would be
useful. A well-known “plane wave” form considered by Misner et al. [12] is as follows:

ds2 = c2dt2 – dx2 – L2(e2βdy2 + e–2βdz2 ), (1)

where L = L(u), β = β (u), u = ct – x, and c is the light speed. Then, the field equation becomes

2
d 2L ⎛ dβ ⎞
+ L⎜ ⎟ =0. (2)
du ' 2
⎝ du ' ⎠

Misner et al. [12] claimed that eq. (2) has a bounded solution, compatible with a linearization of metric
(1). However, careful analysis shows that eq. (2) does not have a physical solution that satisfies
Einstein’s requirement on weak gravity. In fact, L(u) is unbounded even for a very small β (u) [13].
Thus, an exact solution for eq. (2) must be irreducibly unbounded.
On the other hand, from the linearization of the Einstein equation (the Maxwell-Newton
approximation) in vacuum, Einstein [14] obtained a solution as follows:

ds2 = c2dt2 – dx2 – (1 + 2φ) dy2 – (1 – 2φ)dz2, (3)

where φ is a bounded function of u (= ct – x). Note that metric (3) is the linearization of metric (1) if φ
= β (u). Note also that the Maxwell-Newtonian approximation [3] can be derived directly from
Einstein’s equivalence principle [15]. Thus, the problem of gravitational waves illustrate that the
prevailing linearization may not be valid since eq. (2) does not have a weak wave solution.
Since the Einstein equation has no physical solution for the dynamic case, it is not a valid physical
equation for the dynamic case [16]. Thus, it is not clear that the linearized equation is valid since the
linearized equation is derived from the Einstein equation. However, the Hulse-Taylor experiments on
binary pulsars suggest that the gravitational wave does exist, and thus it should be possible to show
validity of the linearized equation, independent of the Einstein equation. Based on Einstein’s
equivalence principle, it has been proven [15] that the linearzed equation is valid for the case that the
sources are massive matter. Because of this, such a linear equation is called the Maxwell-Newton
Approximation [3].
Now a question is what is the equation that the Maxwell-Newton Approximation is an
approximation? It has been determined [3, 17] that one should modify the Einstein equation
1
Gμν ≡ Rμν - gμνR = - K T(m)μν, (4)
2
to be
1
Gμν ≡ Rμν - gμνR = - K [T(m)μν - t(g)μν], (5)
2

where T(m)μν is the massive tensor and t(g)μν is the energy-stress tensors for gravity. Then,

∇μT(m)μν = 0, and ∇μt(g)μν = 0. (6)

Moreover, the Maxwell-Newton Approximation is

∂α∂α γ
1 (1)
2 μν = - K T(m)μν . (7)
where
1
gμν = γμν + ημν, γμν = γ(1)μν + γ(2)μν ; and γ (i)
μν = γ μν - 2 ημν (γ cd η ),
(i) (i) cd

and γ (1)
μν is of a first-order; and γ μν the second order. Then, the equation in vacuum is
(2)

1
Gμν ≡ Rμν - gμνR = K t(g)μν . (5’)
2

Note that t(g)μν is equivalent to Einstein's gravitational pseudotensor or G(2)μν (the second order terms
in Gμν) in terms of his radiation formula [3, 17]. When gravitational wave is present, the gravitational
energy-stress tensor t(g)μν is non-zero as physics requires.
Note that, because of the Maxwell-Newton Approximation (7), the radiation of the binary pulsar
can be calculated without detailed knowledge of t(g)μν. From (5'), the approximate value of t(g)μν at
vacuum can be calculated through Gμν/K since the first-order approximation of gμν can be calculated
through (7). In view of the facts that Kt(g) μν is of the fifth order in a post-Newtonian approximation,
that the deceleration due to radiation is of the three and a half order in a post-Newtonian approximation
[18] and that the perihelion of Mercury was successfully calculated with the second-order
approximation from (5), the orbits of the binary pulsar can be calculated with the second-order
post-Newtonian approximation of (5) by using (7).
Thus, the calculation approaches of Damour and Taylor [19, 20] would be essentially valid except
that they did not realize the crucial fact that (7) is actually an approximation of the update equation (5)
[3, 17]. It is interesting that P. Morrison of MIT had gone to Princeton three times to discuss the
calculations of binary pulsars with Taylor [21]. Taylor finally told Morrison that Damour is responsible
for the calculations.
In light of the above, the Hulse-Taylor experiments support the anti-gravity coupling being
crucial to the existence of the gravitational wave [3, 10], and solution of (7) can be an approximation of
weak waves generated by massive matter. Thus, it has been experimentally verified that the Einstein
equation (4) is actually incompatible with the gravitational radiation.
Perhaps, due to the influence of your news release, ‘t Hooft tried to challenge the fact that the
Einstein equation has no gravitational wave solution with an example of his own creation. However, it
turns out that his example is invalid in physics [22] and this also exposes that ‘t Hooft failed to
understand that a field must have sources and that a plane wave is only a local idealization [22]. This
demonstrates that, an outstanding applied mathematician may not always be a good physicist.
Another problem of the 1993 news release is that Einstein’s equivalence principle was not even
stated correctly. The identity between gravitational and inertial mass was due to Galileo and Newton.
Einstein’s equivalence principle states the effect of an accelerated system as equivalent to the effect of
gravity [4, 5]. Thus, according to Einstein, gravity may not necessary due to space-time curvature. The
view that gravity is due to space-time curvature actually comes from Wheeler [12], who finally rejected
Einstein’s principles as not valid in 1994 [23]. Thus, your news release also contents statements which
are not only wrong but also factually incorrect.
It should be noted although Einstein’s equivalence principle is crucial to general relativity and
almost everybody pays lip service to it, this principle has been practically abandoned. This is supported
by the fact that no textbook and reference (except Einstein’s own) correctly states and explains
Einstein’s equivalence principle and the related Einstein-Minkowski condition [24]. This manifests that
most theorists do not understand Einstein’s equivalence principle and general relativity. Zhou Pei-Yuan
[25, 26] of Peking University is probably the only theorist who understands the importance of
Einstein’s equivalence principle, which Zhou [26] used to reject Einstein’s covariance principle.
Einstein’s accurate predictions created a faith in his theories, and this makes a critical analysis
overdue. Also, the observational confirmations were exaggerated since his equation has no dynamic
solutions as conjectured by Gullstrand [1]. Currently, some theorists just try to make sense out of any
solution of the Einstein equation.
However, NASA’s discovery of the pioneer anomaly would change such a situation because the
data suggest that there would be theoretical problems in Einstein’s theory [27-31]. In fact, this is
confirmed because counter examples of Einstein’s covariance principle are found. For instance,
calculations of the deflection angle of light to the second order actually show that his covariance
principle is invalid [32-34]. Thus, Einstein’s covariance principle is not valid as Zhou [25] pointed out
25 years ago. Moreover, it is also found that Einstein’s justification of his measure theory that
Whitehead [35] criticized as incorrect in physics is actually based on invalid applications of special
relativity [36]. Thus, one may wonder whether the so-called experts of general relativity understand
special relativity.
Now, it is clear that Einstein’s general relativity was difficult to understand because it is not a
self-consistent theory in its area of application [36].
Moreover, Einstein’s own misconception is the primary cause that the necessity of unification
among electromagnetism and gravitation [36-38] was not discovered from his theory earlier. A reason
is that the conditional validity of E = mc2 was not well understood [37, 39, 40]. Nevertheless, Einstein
really was a genius and the full meaning of general relativity is still emerging 100 years after its
creation. For instance, based on general relativity, the charge-mass interaction is identified to be
responsible for the pioneer anomaly discovered by NASA [31].
I trust that you would correct your 1993 news release after adequate studies. And, for the progress
of science, you would also deal with related matter subsequently that would enhance understanding of
gravity. Thank you very much for your kind attention. I am looking forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely yours,

C. Y. Lo

References:

1. A. Gullstrand, Ark. Mat. Astr. Fys. 16, No. 8 (1921); ibid, Ark. Mat. Astr. Fys. 17, No. 3 (1922).
2. A. Einstein, Fundamental ideas and problems of the theory of relativity, Lecture delivered to
the Nordic Assembly of Naturalists at Gothenburg, July 11, 1923.
3. C. Y. Lo, Einstein's Radiation Formula and Modifications to the Einstein Equation, Astrophysical
Journal 455, 421-428 (Dec. 20, 1995).
4. A. Einstein, H. A. Lorentz, H. Minkowski & H. Weyl, with notes by A. Sommerfeld, The Principle
of Relativity, (Dover, New York, 1952).
5. A. Einstein, The Meaning of Relativity (Princeton Univ. Press, 1954).
6. C. Y. Lo, Gravitational Waves and Modification of Einstein's Equation, in Proc. Sixth Marcel
Grossmann Meeting On General Relativity, Kyoto Univ., Japan, 23-29 June 1991, Ed. H. Sato & T.
Nakamura, Ser. Ed. R. Ruffini B, 1496-1498 (Singapore: World Sci., 1992).
7. C. Y. Lo, Einstein's Radiation Formula and Modifications in General Relativity, The Second
William Fairbank Conference On Relativistic Gravitational Experiments In Space & Related
Theoretical Topics, Hong Kong Polytechnic, Hong Kong Dec. 13-16 (1993).
8. C. Y. Lo, Causality, Symmetry, Gauge, and Validity of Linearized Gravity for Waves, Phys.
Essays 7 (4), 453-458 (1994).
9. C. Y. Lo, The Question of Linearized Gravity and Maxwell-Newtonian Approximation, in Proc.
Seventh Marcel Grossmann Meeting On General Relativity, Stanford Univ., U.S.A., 24-30 July
1994, Ed. R. Jantzen & M. Keiser, Ser. Ed. R. Ruffini 525 (Singapore: World Sci., 1996).
10. C. Y. Lo, The Question of Theoretical Self-Consistency in General Relativity: on Light Bending,
Duality, the Photonic Energy-Stress Tensor, and Unified Polarization of the Plane-Wave Forms,
Phys. Essays 12 (2), 226-241 (June, 1999).
11. C. Y. Lo, On Incompatibility of Gravitational Radiation with the 1915 Einstein Equation, Phys.
Essays 13 (4), 527-539 (December, 2000).
12. C. W. Misner, K. S. Thorne, & J. A. Wheeler, Gravitation (W. H. Freeman, San Francisco, 1973).
13. C. Y. Lo, Einstein’s Equivalence Principle, the Principle of Causality, and Plane-Wave Solutions,
Phys. Essays 20 (3), 494-502 (Sept. 2007).
14. A. Einstein, Sitzungsberi, Preuss, Acad. Wis. 1918, 1: 154 (1918).
15. C. Y. Lo, Compatibility with Einstein's Notion of Weak Gravity: Einstein's Equivalence Principle
and the Absence of Dynamic Solutions for the 1915 Einstein Equation, Phys. Essays 12 (3),
508-526 (Sept. 1999).
16. C. Y. Lo, The Gravitational “Plane Waves” of Liu and Zhou and the Nonexistence of Dynamic
Solutions for Einstein’s Equation, Astrophys. Space Sci., 306: 205-215 (2006f) (DOI
10.1007/s10509-006-9221-x).
17. C. Y. Lo, On Incompatibility of Gravitational Radiation with the 1915 Einstein Equation, Phys.
Essays 13 (4), 527-539 (December, 2000).
18. S. Weinberg, Gravitation and Cosmology (John Wiley, New York, 1972).
19. T. Damour & J. H. Taylor, Astrophys. J. 366: 501-511 (1991).
20. T. Damour & J. H. Taylor, Phys. Rev. D, 45 (6), 1840-1868 (1992).
21. C. Y. Lo, Misunderstandings Related to Einstein’s Principle of Equivalence, and Einstein’s
Theoretical Errors on Measurements, Phys. Essays 18 (4), 547-560 (December, 2005).
22. C. Y. Lo, The Principle of Causality and the Cylindrical Symmetry Metrics of Einstein & Rosen,
Bulletin of Pure and Applied Sciences, 27D (2), 149-170 (2008).
23. H. C. Ohanian & R. Ruffini, Gravitation and Spacetime (Norton, New York, 1994).
24. C. Y. Lo, Einstein’s Principle of Equivalence, and the Einstein-Minkowski Condition, Bulletin of
Pure and Applied Sciences, 26D (2), 73-88 (2007d).
25. Zhou (Chou) Pei-Yuan, “On Coordinates and Coordinate Transformation in Einstein’s Theory of
Gravitation” in Proc. of the Third Marcel Grossmann Meetings on Gen .Relativ., ed.Hu Ning,
Science Press & North Holland. (1983), 1-20.
26. Zhou (Chou) P. Y. 1987. “Further Experiments to Test Einstein’s Theory of Gravitation” in Proc. of
Inter. Sym. on Experi. Grav. Phys., GuangZhou, China August.
27. Robert Lee Hotz, “Newton, Einstein Lost in Space?—Scientist May be Getting Warmer in
Finding Why Pioneer Probes Veered off Course,” Wall Street Journal, May 16, 2008, PA7.
28. S. G. Turgshev, V. Toth, L. R. Kellogy, E. L. Lau, and K. J. Lee, “The Study of the Pioneer
Anomaly: New Data Objectives for New Investigation” arXIV: gr-gc/0512121v2, 6 Mar.
2006.
29. Charles Q. Choi, NASA Baffled by Unexplained Force Acting on Space Probes, SPACE.com, 3
March 2008.
30. Richard A. Lovett, Magical mystery tour: the Pioneer anomaly, Issue 21 of Cosmos, June 2008.
31. C. Y. Lo, The Mass-Charge Repulsive Force and Space-Probes Pioneer Anomaly, International
Conference on Physical Interpretations of Relativity Theory, Moscow, Russia 6 July – 9 July
2009, Bauman Moscow State Technical University, Moscow, 105005, Russia
32. C. Y. Lo, The Deflection of Light to Second Order and Invalidity of the “Principle of Covariance”,
Bulletin of Pure and Applied Sciences, 27D (1), 1-15 (2008).
33. C. Y. Lo, Einstein’s Requirement for Weak Gravity, versus Einstein’s Covariance Principle,,
Physical Interpretation of Relativity Theory: Proceedings of International Meeting. Imperial
College, London, September 12 – 15 2008/ Edited by M.C. Duffy, V.O. Gladyshev, A.N.
Morozov, P. Rowlands.
34. C. Y. Lo, A Counter Example of Einstein’s Covariance Principle, The 16th Annual Natural
Philosophy Alliance Conference, University of Connecticut, Storrs, May 25-29, 2009
35. A. N. Whitehead, The Principle of Relativity (Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge, 1962).
36. C. Y. Lo, Some Rectifiable Inconsistencies and Related Problems in Einstein’s General Relativity,
Mathematics, Physics and Philosophy in the Interpretations of Relativity Theory II, Budapest, 4-6
Sept. 2009.
37. C. Y. Lo, The Necessity of Unifying Gravitation and Electromagnetism and the Mass-Charge
Repulsive Effects in Gravity, Physical Interpretation of Relativity Theory: Proceedings of
International Meeting. Moscow, 2 – 5 July 2007/ Edited by M.C. Duffy, V.O. Gladyshev, A.N.
Morozov, P. Rowlands. – Moscow: BMSTU, 2007, p. 82.
38. C. Y. Lo, Limitations of Einstein’s Equivalence Principle and the Mass-Charge Repulsive
Force, Physics Essays 21 (1), 44 (March 2008).
39. C. Y. Lo, Comments on Misunderstandings of Relativity, and the Theoretical Interpretation of the
Kreuzer Experiment, Astrophys. J. 477, 700-704 (March 10, 1997).
40. A. Einstein, ‘E = mc2' (from Science Illustrated 1946) in Ideas and Opinions (Crown, New York,
1954).

p.s.: The published papers not yet in print are attached.

Attachments:

1) C. Y. Lo, The Mass-Charge Repulsive Force and Space-Probes Pioneer Anomaly, International
Conference on Physical Interpretations of Relativity Theory, Moscow, Russia 6 July – 9 July
2009, Bauman Moscow State Technical University, Moscow, 105005, Russia.
2) C. Y. Lo, A Counter Example of Einstein’s Covariance Principle, The 16th Annual Natural
Philosophy Alliance Conference, University of Connecticut, Storrs, May 25-29, 2009.
3) C. Y. Lo, Some Rectifiable Inconsistencies and Related Problems in Einstein’s General
Relativity, Mathematics, Physics and Philosophy in the Interpretations of Relativity Theory II,
Budapest, 4-6 Sept. 2009.
 4) The 1993 News Release of the Nobel Prize Committee

13 October 1993

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the Nobel Prize Physics for 1993
jointly to Russell A. Hulse and Joseph H. Taylor, Jr, both of Princeton University, New Jersey, USA
for the discovery of a new type of pulsar, a discovery that has opened up new possibilities for the
study of gravitation.

Gravity investigated with a binary pulsar

The discovery rewarded with this year's Nobel Prize in Physics was made in 1974 by Russell A. Hulse
and Joseph H. Taylor, Jr using the 300-m radiotelescope at Arecibo, Puerto Rico, West Indies. Taylor,
then Professor at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and his research student Hulse were
searching systematically for pulsars - a kind of rapidly rotating cosmic beacon with a mass somewhat
greater than that of the sun and a radius of about ten kilometres. (A human being on the surface of a
pulsar would weigh some hundred thousand million times more than on Earth.) The pulsar's "beacon
light" is often within the radio wave region.

The first pulsar was discovered in 1967 at the radioastronomy laboratory in Cambridge, England
(Nobel Prize 1974 to Antony Hewish). What was new about the Hulse-Taylor pulsar was that, from the
behaviour of the beacon signal, it could be deduced that it was accompanied by an approximately
equally heavy companion at a distance corresponding to only a few times the distance of the moon
from the earth. The behaviour of this astronomical system deviates greatly from what can be calculated
for a pair of heavenly bodies using Newton's theory. Here a new, revolutionary "space laboratory" has
been obtained for testing Einstein's general theory of relativity and alternative theories of gravity. So
far, Einstein's theory has passed the tests with flying colours. Of particular interest has been the
possibility of verifying with great precision the theory's prediction that the system should lose energy
by emitting gravitational waves in about the same way that a system of moving electrical charges emits
electromagnetic waves.

The significance of the discovery of the binary pulsar

The discovery of the first binary pulsar is primarily of great significance for astrophysics and
gravitational physics. Gravity is the oldest known natural force, the one we are most aware of in daily
life. At the same time it is in one sense the force that is hardest to study since it is so much weaker than
the other three natural forces: the electromagnetic force and the strong and the weak nuclear forces.
The development of technology and science since the second World War with rockets, satellites, space
voyages, radioastronomy, radar technology and the precise measurement of time using atomic clocks
has led to a renaissance of the study of this earliest-known natural force. The discovery of the binary
pulsar represents an important milestone in this historical development.

Relativity theory and gravitational physics

According to Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity, gravity is caused by changes in the
geometry of space and time: space-time curves near masses. Einstein presented his theory in 1915 and
became a world celebrity when in 1919 the English astrophysicist Arthur Eddington announced that
one of the predictions of the theory, the deflection of starlight passing near the surface of the sun - "the
light is drawn towards the sun" - had been verified during solar eclipse expeditions. This deflection of
light. together with a small general-relativity contribution to the perihelion motion of Mercury (a slow
rotation of Mercury's elliptical orbit round the sun), was for several decades the only, partly rather
uncertain, support for Einstein's theory.

For a long time the theory of relativity was considered aesthetically very beautiful and satisfying,
probably correct, but of little practical significance to physics except in applications in cosmology, the
study of the origin, development and structure of the universe.

Attitudes to the general theory of relativity changed, however, during the 1960s when both
experimental and theoretical developments made gravitational physics a topical part of physics. New
opportunities for precise experiments, based on satellite and radar technology, opened up. In particular,
the research of the Americans R. Dicke and I. Shapiro contributed to this. Dicke performed precision
experiments in which the sun's gravitational field on the earth was used for verifying what is termed the
equivalence principle, the identity between gravitational and inertial mass - one of the basic principles
of the general theory of relativity (and also of several alternative gravitation theories). Important
contributions were also Shapiro's theoretical prediction and experimental verification, using radar
echoes from Mercury, of a new consequence of the general theory of relativity - a time-delay effect for
electromagnetic signals passing through gravitational fields.

All these experiments, however, were confined to our solar system with its very weak gravitational
fields and consequently small deviations, hard,to measure, from the Newtonian theory of gravity.
Hence it was possible to test the general theory of relativity and other theories only in the first
post-Newtonian approximation.

The discovery of the binary pulsar

Hulse's and Taylor's discovery in 1974 of the first binary pulsar, called PSR 1913 + 16 (PSR stands for
pulsar, and 1913 + 16 specifies the pulsar's position in the sky) thus brought about a revolution in the
field. We have here two very small astronomical bodies, each with a radius of some ten kilometres but
with a mass comparable with that of the sun, and at a short distance from each other, only several times
the moon's distance from the earth. Here the deviations from Newton's gravitational physics are large.
As an example may be mentioned that the periastron shift, the rotation of the elliptical orbit that the
pulsar (according to Kepler's first law from the beginning of the 17th century) follows in this system, is
4 degrees per year. The corresponding relativistic shift for the most favourable example in our solar
system, the above-mentioned perihelion motion of Mercury, is 43 seconds of arc per century (this is
less than a tenth of the very much larger contributions to the perihelion motion caused by perturbations
from other planets, chiefly Venus and Jupiter). The difference in size between the shifts is partly due to
the orbital speed in the binary pulsar, which is almost five times greater than Mercury's, and partly due
to the pulsar performing about 250 times more orbits a year than Mercury. The orbiting time of the
binary pulsar is less than eight hours, which can be compared with the one month our moon takes to
orbit the earth.

A very important property of the new pulsar is that its pulse period, the time between two beacon
sweeps (0.05903 see) has proved to be extremely stable, as opposed to what applies to many other
pulsars. The pulsar's pulse period increases by less than 5% during 1 million years. This means that the
pulsar can be used as a clock which for precision can compete with the best atomic clocks, This is a
very useful feature when studying the characteristics of the system.

The very stable pulse period is in fact a mean of the pulse period observed on earth over the time of one
orbit of the pulsar system. The observed period actually varies by several tens of microseconds, i.e. by
an amount that is much greater than the variation in the mean value. This is a Doppler effect, and led to
the conclusion that the observed pulsar moves in a periodic orbit, meaning that it must have a
companion. As the pulsar approaches the earth, the pulses reach the earth more frequently; as it recedes
they arrive less frequently. From the variation in pulse period, conclusions can be drawn about the
pulsar's speed in its orbit and other important features of the system.

Demonstration of gravitational waves

A very important observation was made when the system had been followed for some years. This
followed theoretical predictions made shortly after the original discovery of the pulsar. It was found
that the orbit period is declining: the two astronomical bodies are rotating faster and faster about each
other in an increasingly tight orbit. The change is very small. It corresponds to a reduction of the orbit
period by about 75 millionths of a second per year, but, through observation over sufficient time, it is
nevertheless fully measurable. This change was presumed to occur because the system is emitting
energy in the form of gravitational waves in accordance with what Einstein in 1916 predicted should
happen to masses moving relatively to each other. According to the latest data, the theoretically
calculated value from the relativity theory agrees to within about one half of a percent with the
observed value. The first report of this effect was made by Taylor and co-workers at the end of 1978,
four years after the discovery of the binary pulsar was reported.

The good agreement between the observed value and the theoretically calculated value of the orbital
path can be seen as an indirect proof of the existence of gravitational waves. We will probably have to
wait until next century for a direct demonstration of their existence. Many long-term projects have been
started for making direct observations of gravitational waves impinging upon the earth. The radiation
emitted by the binary pulsar is too weak to be observed on the earth with existing techniques. However,
perhaps the violent perturbations of matter that take place when the two astronomical bodies in a binary
star (or a binary pulsar) approach each other so closely that they fall into each other may give rise to
gravitational waves that could be observed here. It is also hoped to be able to observe many other
violent events in the universe. Gravitational wave astronomy is the latest, as yet unproven, branch of
observational astronomy, where neutrino astronomy is the most direct predecessor. Gravitational wave
astronomy would then be the first observational technique for which the basic principle was first tested
in an astrophysical context. All earlier observational techniques in astronomy have been based on
physical phenomena which first became known in a terrestrial connection.