OT: Interesting for you math/science geeks...

[red5angel]

http://www.aoc.nrao.edu/epo/pr/2003/gravity/

I have been watching this for a little while now, it's getting interesting....

[qeySuS]

Interesting question arose in another msg board. Since it takes light 8 minutes to come to eart, if the sun was to vanish into thin air, would we circle around a non-existant star for 8 minutes before feeling the effects of the sun disappearing?

[Souljah]

Yea this is interesting/good news.....as theyve been doubting einsteins theory for quite some time now, now they know he was right.
amazing how it took 80 years to prove it.

[Souljah]

yes that is the belief qeySuS, after those 8 mins the earth would continue in a straight line they say. until it could hook onto another source.

[red5angel]

well if this theory is right then yes, we would circle for another 8 minutes before all hell broke loose. Same with the sun going supernova as well, we wouldn't know it for 8 minutes.
Unless of course your using a telescope because everyone knows light gets to telescops faster... ;)

[eulerfan]

Wow. Pretty cool.

You know, I worked at the Laser Interferometry Gravitaional Wave Observatory in Livingston. Office work. I wasn't a researcher or anything. Helping with paperwork while they were building it. But it was still pretty freaking cool.

[red5angel]

"You know, I worked at the Laser Interferometry Gravitaional Wave Observatory in Livingston"

Not to sound like a total geek but that's pretty freekin cool! Of course I am the kind of guy who stops for two hours at a radio telescope in New Mexico to watch the dishes shift......

This stuff is pretty exciting to me, figuring out gravity would be a huge leap in understanding and I believe technology, because as GI Joe always says, knowing is half the battle. We don't get to travel outside the solar system until we get it figured out.....

[Ford Prefect]

Heh. The link didn't work for me. Was this about Relativity or particle physics?

[Souljah]

it was about gravity being the same speed as light, how it has been proven.
and the theory of relativity since it was based on this

[red5angel]

Ford, they are experimenting with a way to measure the speed of gravity using jupiters gravity bending the light waves form a quasar, basicaly.

Try cutting and pasting the link to see it it works. It's pretty cool stuff.

[Ford Prefect]

Cool. Thanks for the info. The problem is probably just related to our DNS here since we are having on-going problems with it. I like physics a lot, but string theory and some of the particle theories are a little too far out there for me. "What? 9 dimensions doesn't work? OK. Well that means there's 10!"

[red5angel]

Ford, I am still trying to work through it all. From what I understand, those multidimensions go away if gravity is proved to move at the speed of light. don't take my word for it though.

[fa_jing]

This is interesting. But I don't see any articles at sciam.com or abcnews.com about it. Anyway, we've known that light was bent by gravity for a long time, and it was taken as a confirmation of general relativity which equivilates gravity with the bending of space time. I wasn't aware that someone had developed a way to calculate the effect of the speed of the propogation of gravity. Makes perfect sense though. Now, the big question is

why?

;)

[fa_jing]

I take it back!


http://www.abcnews.go.com/wire/SciTech/ap20030108_276.html

[Serpent]

My brain just melted.

[Sharky]

I'm certainly wetting myself with excitement, i just don't know what to do with myself.

[Serpent]

Originally posted by Sharky
I'm certainly wetting myself with excitement, i just don't know what to do with myself.

You know you're going to be talking about this at parties all weekend. Don't try to deny it.

[eulerfan]

Originally posted by Sharky
I'm certainly wetting myself with excitement, i just don't know what to do with myself.

Pure science can create huge advances that nobody knows it will create when the research begins.

You can have a burrito in a minute because some guy, for no good reason, wanted to find this one tiny part of the light spectrum called microwave radiation.

[Serpent]

Originally posted by eulerfan


Pure science can create huge advances that nobody knows it will create when the research begins.

You can have a burrito in a minute because some guy, for no good reason, wanted to find this one tiny part of the light spectrum called microwave radiation.

Wasn't microwave cooking discovered by some dude walking past something with a Mars Bar in his pocket that melted or something? I'm probably just regurgitating some BS myth. The Mars bar probably melted cos it was in his pocket!

[GunnedDownAtrocity]

the dark spot on sharkys jeans has got me all bothered, but i can't fu ck my woman cause she's covered in infections scabbing sores. life's a bi tch.

[eulerfan]

Originally posted by Serpent


Wasn't microwave cooking discovered by some dude walking past something with a Mars Bar in his pocket that melted or something? I'm probably just regurgitating some BS myth. The Mars bar probably melted cos it was in his pocket!

No, I think that's right. They were using microwaves for something else, first. I don't remember what. My point is that the intial research was for no end but pure science. There are probably much better examples of why pure science rocks.

[Sharky]

We don't really 'do' burrito's in the UK.

We leave that to the great satan.

[GunnedDownAtrocity]

im proud to live in a country with such an affectionate nick name.

[GunnedDownAtrocity]

unless you mean mexico.

cause mexico is stupid.

[Chang Style Novice]

You take that back! No place with beer and liquor that cheap is stupid!

That's absolutely facinating news, and completely over my head.

[Sharky]

But you can paint pretty pictures, which everyone knows is far more useful.

[Chang Style Novice]

And that's not all! I can look at a painting that appears to be just a bunch of paint splashed around, and tell you who painted it.

Go me!

[red5angel]

Fa_jing, like Eulerfan pointed out, a lot of seemingly odd or useless discoveries in science have led to things useful and common and not so common but useful anyways. In this particular instance it goes along way towards helping us explain the univers in general, if the theory stands true. Plus the understanding of gravity is a huge leap towards many things, prolonged time in space, as well as weird science effects that may allow us to travel vast distances in a short amount of time, all in the comfort of 1G.

Actually I have discussed this quite a bit recently at parties, it's amazing how many people actualy find this stuff interesting.

[Sharky]

Originally posted by Chang Style Novice
And that's not all! I can look at a painting that appears to be just a bunch of paint splashed around, and tell you who painted it.

Go me!

Don't ever let me sell you short like that again y'hear?!

[Ford Prefect]

Red5,

I wish they did, but string theory already theorizes gravity travels at light speed and even has the "graviton" particle as it's messenger. Since the graviton is massless like the photon, it is capable of traveling at the speed of light. String theory needs all those extra dimensions to make it mathematically viable. Althought there are some great theories on how those dimensions exist at sub-plank length sizes and how we can be utterly unaware of them, I think string theory's popularity is a product of it being the only show in town.

A couple very interesting books I've read on string theory and the geometry of these extra dimensions are:

Hyperspace by Kaku
The Elegant Universe by Greene

[David]

I thought string theory went out of fashion 10 years ago - shows how much I know!

It's great to know that gravity has a speed. Despite the theories, there was always the possibility that it was immediate/immanent and that was one BIG loose end.

Though I noticed the headline a few days ago, I haven't had time to read-up on it.

Tonight, I shall celebrate :-)

Or should I hide under the bed... Is the universe going to fall apart is is there a huge gravity tsunami hurtling towards us that'll suck our eyeballs out of our heads and into the air like snails have? :-(

-David

[red5angel]

Greenes book is good, I am getting ready here to reread it. I think this idea sort of blows string theory out of the water. I agree that it's popularity is more due to being the only show in town at the moment. Too many things you have to sort of skim past to make it fit. I have ever been comfortable with string theory but I can't really explain why!
I have to wonder if the "speed" of gravity is just a brain pun, something we ar elooking so hard for we are going to find it whether it exist or not.

[Ford Prefect]

Personally, I find a lot of theoretical physics to be a "brain pun". I still find it facinating and am well-read with a lot of different aspects in physics, but it just doesn't sit well with me. I can't help but think of what scientists "knew" in the past that turned out to be so off it is laughable now-a-days. Even though I consider myself an atheist for the most part, I'm not comfortable with the diefication of science in modern America.

Have you read Wolfram's book, "A New Kind of Science"? I thought that one was interesting even if it read like a VCR owner's manual. I'm waiting to see what will actually come of it when it can be verified by indepent sources.

[Braden]

I don't know anything about GUTs.

How do they fit into being a firm hidden-variable quantum model believer (ala De Broglie and Bohm)?

[fa_jing]

www.superstringtheory.com

Everything you always wanted to know about Modern Physics, but were afraid to ask. :D

[Ford Prefect]

Braden,

There really isn't much to GUT/TOE's. String theory right now is the only one that is at least theoretically/mathametically viable in keeping with what is "known" about quantum mechanics. I'm fairly certain that string theory maintains (or perhaps doesn't address) wave-particle duality. Check out one of the books I mentioned. The reading is light enough.

[Braden]

*shudders at the website* It reminded me why I'm so dissatisfied with modern physics! A good resource though, thanks.

Thanks Ford, I will check them out.