[seqfan] Re: Algebraic numbers of high degree

[Robert Israel]

The point is that the astronomical unit, originally the average distance
from Earth to Sun, has been officially defined since 2012 as exactly
149597870700 metres.

I suppose if there were astronomers on Pluto, they might define their
"astronomical unit" as some fixed multiple of their fundamental unit of
distance, but there's no point in speculating on what that might be. Here
on Earth, there is no "astronomical unit for Pluto".

Cheers,
Robert Israel
(sending from another account because my UBC webmail seems to be
having issues)

On Nov 1 2014, Bob Selcoe wrote:

> >There is an irreducible integer polynomial P(x) of degree 86400 such that
>> P(A248424) = 0, and if Q is an integral polynomial of degree less than
>> 86400 then Q(A248424) is nonzero.
>
>Thanks, Charles.
>
>> The degree comes from "...arcscond..." and so the connection to the
>> number of seconds in a day is not entirely coincidental -- both have
>> factors of 60 * 60, for one thing.
>
> Precisely the reason why I suspect other astrophysical movements might
> yield related results - maybe even of higher degree? For example, perhaps
> the (approximate) astronomical unit for Pluto subtending its 1 arcsecond
> angle is a constant with degree equivalent to the number of seconds (in
> Earth units) in one Plutonian day (approx. 550,000). That may be a poor
> example (again, I'm not an astrophysicist), but perhaps something along
> those lines.
>
>Cheers,
>Bob