A flat space-time relativistic explanation for the perihelion advance of Mercury

Abstract

Starting with the flat space-time relativistic versions of Maxwell-Heaviside's toy model vector theory of gravity and introducing the gravitational analogues for the electromagnetic Lienard-Wiechert potentials together with the notion of a gravitational Thomas Precession; the observed anomalous perihelion advance of Mercury's orbit is here explained as a relativistic effect in flat (Minkowski) space-time, unlike Einstein's curved space-time relativistic explanation. In this new explanation for the old paradoxical observation of Mercury's perihelion shift, the predicted value of the effect happens to coincide with Einstein's predicted value in General relativity.