Andrew Prentice is an Australian mathematician. He is known for developing an alternative model of planetary formation. In contrast to the conventional model where planetary accretion occurs within a continuous disk, according to Prentice's "Modern Laplacian Theory" each planet accretes within a discrete circumsolar gas ring. Prentice's nested gas rings arise due to the effect of 'supersonic turbulent convection' in slowing the infall of interstellar dust and gas. Instead of collapsing directly to form a flat continuous disk, due to 'turbulent stress' the gas temporarily remains puffed up in a vast rotating spheroidal atmosphere around the protosolar core. This atmosphere spins faster as it slowly contracts. It rids itself of excess angular momentum by sequentially shedding gas rings from its equator. The same process repeats itself on a much smaller scale for each of the giant planets to produce their regular satellite systems. Prentice has used his unorthodox model to make a range of surprisingly accurate predictions about the solar system. He is currently Emeritus Professor in the School of Mathematical Sciences at Monash University.
Lecturing style
Andrew Prentice was a member of the lecturing staff at Monash University, Clayton. He was considered an excellent teacher.
Predictions
Prentice has made a long list of controversial predictions about the nature of our solar system, based on the Modern Laplacian Theory. The assumptions of the theory have largely been shown to be incorrect, but to the surprise of many of his colleagues, NASA missions have confirmed that many of his deductions from the theory were remarkably accurate. Some of his best known predictions are:
In 1977, Prentice hypothesised that a rocky moon belt existed at four planetary radii from Jupiter's centre. Two years later, such a rocky ring was discovered, though closer to Jupiter than Prentice had predicted.
He predicted that Uranus had two more moons or moonlet streams than commonly thought. Nine years later, a new moon, was discovered to be orbiting Uranus, in addition to a family of nine moonlets
In 1981, Prentice theorised that the mass of Saturn's moon Tethys was in fact 20–25% larger than the generally predicted level. Three months later, it was confirmed to be 21% larger than previously thought.
In 1989, he predicted that Neptune had four additional dark moons, at 5, 3.5, 2.5 and 1.8 radii in Neptune's equatorial plane. By the end of the year, four dark moons were discovered in Neptune's equatorial plane at 7, 3, 2.5 and 2.1 radii.
He predicted that dry ice would be the main carbon-bearing chemical on Triton. Three years later, infrared devices confirmed this.
