Lawrence Tech Department of Natural Sciences

Thomas Brisby (2007 Physics graduate) performed various calculations to iterate the orbit parameters for the Earth.  These involved comparing the accuracies of Euler’s Method, 4th order Runga Kutta, and a dynamical time series method suggested by astronomy Jean Meeus.  Tom analyzed high accuracy kepler calculations (which included a selected number of solar system objects) with Meeus’ dynamical time series calculations and studied how the differences grew over time and orbits.  As part of the project, Tom sharpened his computational skills as well as his numerical methods knowledge.  Advisor: Dr. Scott Schneider (sschneide@ltu.edu).