How real scientists react to General Relativity being trillions off in a prediction - by Jennie&Tim
Nicker on 3/4/2006 at 20:25
Quote Posted by TF
Nothing moves faster than light. If the sun vanished, it'd take a pretty large amount of time before our orbit would gonk.
Just over eight minutes, in theory. A fairly (
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn3232) recent experiment claims to prove this position but some (
http://www.lbl.gov/Science-Articles/Archive/Phys-speed-of-gravity.html) critics say that the speed of gravity being equal to or less than the speed of light, is neither proven nor disproven by the findings. General Relativity predicts that a gravitational radiation cannot exceed the speed of light but experimental proof may be beyond the capability of our current technlolgy.
Gravitational force does appear to act at infinite speed (without abberation) but there are explanations which reconcile this behaviour with General Relativity (the "rubber sheet" space/time warp analogy for instance). Maybe this thread will clarify some of these things without causing too much brain sprain.
trevor the sheep on 3/4/2006 at 20:55
Fucken scientists!
Getting in there before fett and co.
Gingerbread Man on 3/4/2006 at 20:56
Electromagnetic radiation is electromagnetic radiation. Calling it "the speed of light" is a colloquial inaccuracy -- at least, it is if you assume that only light goes that fast.
180 mph might very well be the Speed of Ferrari, but you can be sure you'll find other cars going that fast right next to it.
Agent Monkeysee on 3/4/2006 at 21:22
That's true but I think it's on pretty solid theoretical ground. If gravity propagated at super-luminal speeds then you can send signals at faster than light, meaning you can violate causality. If a postulate results in a violation of causality chances are pretty damn good the postulate is wrong so it's a solid bet that gravity is constrained in the same way as any other force despite the fact that we've had a hell of a time trying to measure it experimentally.
fett on 4/4/2006 at 01:05
Quote:
Getting in there before fett and co.
That's cute. You must have picked it up from someone cool.*
Oh - and something about quantam physics blah blah.
*Bite my ass you hack.
Para?noid on 4/4/2006 at 09:28
Is that the stage before bantam-weight physics
Tony on 4/4/2006 at 09:35
Isn't saying "gravity travels faster than light" kind of like like saying "love travels faster than light?" I mean, gravity isn't exactly energy, is it? It's more like a ... er ... law of physics, isn't it? Yeah ... I'll go back into my corner now.
DaBeast on 4/4/2006 at 11:58
Quote Posted by Tony
Isn't saying "gravity travels faster than light" kind of like like saying "love travels faster than light?" I mean, gravity isn't exactly energy, is it? It's more like a ... er ... law of physics, isn't it? Yeah ... I'll go back into my corner now.
I think thats what they're tryin to figure out lad.
Para?noid on 4/4/2006 at 12:02
Quote Posted by Tony
Isn't saying "gravity travels faster than light" kind of like like saying "love travels faster than light?" I mean, gravity isn't exactly energy, is it? It's more like a ... er ... law of physics, isn't it? Yeah ... I'll go back into my corner now.
It <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graviton">could</a> be.
Agent Monkeysee on 4/4/2006 at 15:15
Quote Posted by Tony
Isn't saying "gravity travels faster than light" kind of like like saying "love travels faster than light?" I mean, gravity isn't exactly energy, is it? It's more like a ... er ... law of physics, isn't it? Yeah ... I'll go back into my corner now.
No, it's a force like any other. Like the electromagnetic force, the strong force, or the weak force, all which have propogation speeds and carrier particles.
