[rmolnav]

Adding a small offset force should affect the elliptical trajectory of a body the same way it produces it: where the body is moving away from the force, it should slow down its tangential speed a bit faster than it is actually slowing and curve its direction a bit faster than it is actually curved, and where it is moving closer, it should increase its tangential speed a bit faster than it is actually increasing and curve its direction a bit faster than it is actually increasing too.

But no force is actually added because of tides ... Total earth´s pull keeps constant, but very slightly changes "inclination" relative to the orbit.
Therefore, tangential component increases and decreases, with their corresponding decreases and increases of perpendicular component, the one which actually counts for curvature ...
And regarding:

Optical phenomenon are measured with instruments made out of atoms, and since those atoms move according to the direction and the intensity of the gravitational force applied on them, then we can deduce that the direction and the speed they take while being accelerated depend on any optical phenomenon they suffer during that moment.

I have to say that optics is not my forte ... But I consider thinking those interactions between optical phenomena, speeds taken by used instrument atoms (or other earth atoms), and gravitational forces applied on them, might have a not completely insignificant influence on orbits, tides, etc. is utterly absurd !!

[Le Repteux (OP)]

I have to say that optics is not my forte ... But I consider thinking those interactions between optical phenomena, speeds taken by used instrument atoms (or other earth atoms), and gravitational forces applied on them, might have a not completely insignificant influence on orbits, tides, etc. is utterly absurd !!

Take a look at this simulation I made of four bonded particles. What bonds them is a standing wave made of light. A photon is sent vertically and another one horizontally between them while they are accelerating to the right. When the photons hit the particles, they automatically send back another one. The left particles accelerate before the right ones because the acceleration comes from the left. The idea is to move the particles so that the two photons keep on hitting the left upper particle at the same time. This way, the particles stay on the nodes of their standing wave, which is precisely what any particle bonding is made of. While hitting the start button, look at the way the particles behave when a photon strikes them. When the photons leave the particles, they contain the kinetic energy the particles carry in the form of doppler effect, and they transfer this energy to the other particles later on, which then accelerate and print on the photons they are sending back their own kinetic energy. Since the left particles accelerate before the right ones, the system contracts horizontally, and for the vertical photon to stay on sync with the horizontal one, it must also contract vertically, so whenever the vertical photon is late a bit, the vertical distance automatically contracts a bit, and it does so until the system is back on sync.

Once the simulation is on, you will notice that the vertical particle leaves a trace of its previous location on the screen. The more the speed increases, the more this trace is at angle to the vertical. This trace indicates the direction the photon has to take to hit the other particle, so it is also in this direction that it goes at the speed of light. In the Relativity theory, that phenomenon is called "beaming", and it is accompanied by another one called "aberration", where the direction of a photon is affected by the transverse speed that an observer has with regard to it. In our case, it happens when the vertical photon strikes a particle. If it would strike it vertically, aberration would indicate that it came from the right a bit, but it strikes at an angle due to beaming, so aberration simply indicates that it came at right angle, as if the system was not moving, which is why the particles move vertically when the two photons are getting out of sync a bit. In this case, the light that keeps the vertical particles bonded seems to come from the actual position of the other particles, but it is not the case for the light from the stars because we are not going at the same speed and in the same direction they are going. Because of aberration, when we look at a star, we do not see it where it actually is, and since gravitation travels at the speed of light, we can consider that its direction is also affected by the speed of the celestial bodies. If aberration of light due to the different rotational motions of the earth was so negligible, we would not be able to observe it, and we are. On the other hand, the offset the bulges take while being dragged by friction is so tiny that it is unobservable, it's only theoretical, and it depends on an energy calculation, and so does the transfer of energy from the earth's tides to the moon's slow recessing.

That said, I still think that aberration is useful to orbital motion, but not to recessing, for which I prefer my slow shortening of the particles' wavelengths. In my simulation with four bonded particles, the distance between them is contracting when they are accelerated, and constant acceleration is precisely what gravitation is about. While the distances contract, the time the photons take to make a roundtrip is contracting too, which means that the wavelength of their standing wave is also contracting, thus shortening, exactly as what I am suggesting. I'm probably still far from the truth, but that kind of simulation is nevertheless helpful to our understanding of what may be happening if interactions are not instantaneous at any scale. You won't find them on the scientific forums that forbid us to criticize Relativity though, because to move a photon on a screen the way I do, we have to accept that it is not always traveling at a constant speed with regard to the particles, thus that motion is not as relative as we thought it was. In fact, we have to believe that light travels in ether, and that the screen is at rest relative to it, which makes it an absolute reference frame, thus contradicting the relativity idea that all the reference frames are relative. But simulations do explain Relativity very well. Take a look at the one illustrating the Twins paradox, and you will see that with the same screen at rest in ether, the two clocks do not display the same elapsed time once they are brought back together at the end.

[Le Repteux (OP)]

Discard the tidal acceleration hypothesis if you want, but then you need to explain the moon moving away a very measurable 4 cm each year.

My orbital speed hypothesis and my aberration hypothesis do not seem to work, but my slow shortening of the particles' wavelengths seems to work. If our atomic clocks are constantly speeding up with time while the speed of light stays constant, the time light takes to make a roundtrip to the moon would seem to lengthen, and we could easily attribute it wrongly to an increase in distance if we also consider that the speed of light is constant because we depend on light to measure that kind of distance. As I said, that phenomenon would produce redshift, so it could also explain the cosmological redshift, but I also think that it could produce gravitation itself since it would give the particles the false information that they are moving away from one another with time, so they would be forced to accelerate constantly towards one another for the strength of their bonds to stay constant, and whatever the kind of bonding. It is an extremely circular phenomenon, but it doesn't mean that it doesn't work. I made a simulation with two bonded particles exchanging light and trying to keep the strength of their bond constant while being accelerated, and I got the same circularity, but it works. In that case, doppler effect is not only an effect from motion, but it also causes it. When we stop the acceleration, the blueshift produced on the photon by the motion to the right of the left particle produces the motion to the right of the right particle later on, which produces redshift on the photon it emits backwards to the left particle, which produces the motion to the right of the left particle later on. It is circular, but it works: this way, the strength of the bond stays constant whatever the speed of the system and even if the information exchanged is not instantaneous.

[Le Repteux (OP)]

If that were true, everything else (other planets, the sun ...) would all similarly be receding from us.

They would seem to be receding, which is precisely what the tidal acceleration hypothesis implies too in the case of the solar system. The phenomenon is difficult to observe though. We don't have mirrors on the sun to tell us if the distance seems to be increasing. Another observation has to be explained too: the geological Rhythmites. Those layers show that there was more days in a month and more months in a year than there is now, but they don't tell us if there was also more years in one cycle around the galaxy, and if it was so, it could mean that all those cycles seem to slow down with time, whereas in reality, they would all stay proportional to the period of the involved cycles. Since gravitation is not instantaneous, that phenomenon would not be instantaneous either, and it would thus be affected by distance, so it could also explain why the galaxies seem to be receding from us at an accelerated rate.

[rmolnav]

My orbital speed hypothesis and my aberration hypothesis do not seem to work, but my slow shortening of the particles' wavelengths seems to work. If our atomic clocks are constantly speeding up with time while the speed of light stays constant, the time light takes to make a roundtrip to the moon would seem to lengthen, and we could easily attribute it wrongly to an increase in distance if we also consider that the speed of light is constant because we depend on light to measure that kind of distance. As I said, that phenomenon would produce redshift, so it could also explain the cosmological redshift, but I also think that it could produce gravitation itself since it would give the particles the false information that they are moving away from one another with time, so they would be forced to accelerate constantly towards one another for the strength of their bonds to stay constant, and whatever the kind of bonding. It is an extremely circular phenomenon, but it doesn't mean that it doesn't work

Again: to me all that sounds like an utterly absurd idea ...
Most eminent scientists, the ones from NASA among them, have for decades been measuring enormeous distances, with all sort of advanced instruments using electromagnetic radiations (infrared included), and they master radiations and all those frequency shifts you talk about ...
Also with sound, and recently with gravitational waves ...
And they give unbelievably precise figures ...
Do you honestly think none of them has even imagined what you refer to could be making all their measurements actually erroneous ??
If so, you should contact some of them and expose your ideas ...
If you google "NASA" and then enter "astronomy distance measurements" on the "questions" window, you´ll get a long list of articles on the subject ... On many of them you´ll find email direction of the author. Choose one and send him an e-mail.
I´ve done that several times (mainly discussing tides and centrifugal force), and they usually reply received e-mails ...

[Le Repteux (OP)]

Again: to me all that sounds like an utterly absurd idea ...

You are probably right about that, so at last, we found a common ground! :0)

[Le Repteux (OP)]

They would seem to be receding, which is precisely what the tidal acceleration hypothesis implies too in the case of the solar system.

For that matter, the building across the street would seem to be receding. That's a pretty easy falsification test for your hypothesis.

We don't feel it because it is too weak, but buildings do exert a gravitational force on us, and whenever there is a force between two bodies, information is involved even if we can't detect it. Curved space is not an information, so it doesn't help us to understand what gravitation is really about. To discover it, I think we have to think in terms of light, and ask ourselves how it could inform bodies on their speed or their direction with regard to other bodies. Light has an absolute speed and absolute direction, and since particles are exchanging some, they can certainly use it to determine whether they are moving or not with regard to other particles, and they can certainly use it to know the direction they have with regard to them also. Doppler effect and aberration are not only human discoveries, they also really affect the energy and the direction of the light the particles emit and absorb, so they could really be a cause for the direction and the speed they take with regard to other particles.