- #36
PeterDonis
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PeterDonis said:This doesn't make sense to me. The formula I posted shows that if you only know z and M, not r, you can't know a. In other words, given a fixed z and M, there are multiple possible values of a. So I don't see how it's possible for a to only be tied to z and M.
Never mind; I see now how to rewrite the formula. We take the formula for z:
[tex]z = \sqrt{1 - \frac{2M}{r}}[/tex]
and rearrange to:
[tex]r = \frac{2M}{1 - z^2}[/tex]
and then substitute into the formula for a to obtain:
[tex]a = \frac{M}{r^2 z} = \frac{M \left( 1 - z^2 \right)^2}{4 M^2 z} = \frac{\left( 1 - z^2 \right)^2}{4 M z}[/tex]
which is what you wrote a few posts ago.