PURPOSE: To show the precession of the perihelion of mercury.
DESCRIPTION: The orbit of Mercury moving around the Sun was calculated by Kepler with classical mechanics to be a simple, perfect ellipse. When the relativistic changes of mass, length and clockrate on Mercury are neglected, we find an erroneous Keplerian prediction.
However, general relativity explains the precession of the perihelion of Mercury. A different, non-Keplerian orbit with the precessing ellipse was observed in the early 20th century using more careful measurement methods.
EQUIPMENT: A very short, thirty second Video-bite showing the precession of the perihelion of Mercury.
Updated by Jun Qi in 3/20/2000