Open Questions in 2004
How good is the predictive power of the model?
–Is this a true periodicity, or a
pseudo-periodicity stable over a few periods? No successful prediction ð No Good!!!!
–There were many predictions for the epoch of
the next maximum (see Kidger,
2000, AJ, 119, 2053 for a summary). Most suggested that it would be between 2006.25 and 2006.75.
•Much
of this range is a period of poor visibility near solar conjunction.
•The secondary maximum in
2007 was also predicted to occur near conjunction.
•Exact
timing of the maxima would allow the model to be verified
and refined.
Slightly different assumptions of initial parameters in
the binary black hole
model lead to very different predictions.
–A
sad consequence of the poor quality of the historical light curve.
