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Scientists are being suprised all the time by new phenomena that has not acted the way they were expecting. Michelson and Morley, for instance, were expecting to find the earth sailing through the heavens but they could find no motion whatsoever (of earth moving "relative to space") so other scientists came up with several ad hoc explanations which make no sense at all but they decided to except them anyway.

Einstein said absolute motion is irrelevant (which it is not - the absolute motion of a body is "zero" - relative to space - This makes a big difference when it comes to the emission of light) & Lorentz and Fitzgerald said the ruler gets shorter, just enough to cancel out any detectable motion of the earth's motion (how convenient!).

They also thought that ether was some sort of gas that the earth moved through (causing an ether wind) - which it is not. Ether is like inertia and gravity - it is there but it cannot be detected physically, only its effects can be detected.

The Pioneer anomaly is just another little phenomenon that suprised the scientists. It also gave them an excellent opportunity to check the true value of C (not the speed of light) but the value Einstein decided to use to show the tremendous amount of energy in a small amount of mass.

It is not a new physics - it is just adjusting the value of C empirically to show its true value. Changing its value could change the spacecraft's inertial mass and therefore its gravitational attraction. This new value of C may allow them to predict more accurate trajectories of future spacecraft jouneys into deep space, if it does not they will have to look for another cause of the anomaly. The one they came up with so far reminds me a little of Fitzgerald's "ruler".

The laws of nature are full of suprises - they challenge the imagination of its investigators to unlock its secrets. So far the "Mind" of mankind has risen to the challenge but there is still a long way to go.

Don Hamilton
http://novan.com/mind.htm