Gravity moves at speed of light

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Fausto

Elite Member
Nov 29, 2000
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Interesting stuff.



/starts timer to keep track of how long it takes someone to hop in the thread and type "I understand gravity just fine. I get drunk. I fall down. Gravity explained." :p
 
Mr.IncrediblyBored

Mr.IncrediblyBored

Lifer
Jun 18, 2000
11,208
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"You can expect a series of experiments now," he said.

Fomalout and Kopeikin said their results are accurate within about 20 percent.

Knowing the precise speed of gravity is important to physicists testing such modern ideas as the superstring, which holds that fundamental particles in the universe are made up of small vibrating loops or strings. It also affects some basic space-time theories.
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How on earth can you come to this conclusion with tests that are 80% accurate?
 
D

Darein

Platinum Member
Nov 14, 2000
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This is a pretty interesting idea. I never really thought about gravity traveling with a finite speed before.
 
C

cjchaps

Diamond Member
Jul 24, 2000
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Since we don't even know what gravity really is, I don't see how they can say it actually "moves" at all....
 
Y

Yossarian

Lifer
Dec 26, 2000
18,010
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Does this mean that if a new star were to suddenly pop into existence, nearby objects wouldn't be influenced until its gravity traveled to that object (at the speed of light)?
 
D

Darein

Platinum Member
Nov 14, 2000
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Yeah. An article said that if the sun were to disappear it would take about 8 minutes for the Earth to react.
 
HomeBrewerDude

HomeBrewerDude

Lifer
Jan 18, 2001
14,465
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Originally posted by: PipBoy
Does this mean that if a new star were to suddenly pop into existence, nearby objects wouldn't be influenced until its gravity traveled to that object (at the speed of light)?
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thats the idea.

Originally posted by: cjchaps
Since we don't even know what gravity really is, I don't see how they can say it actually "moves" at all....
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Yeah i agree with you... and I am no physics expert... but see here for a brief overview of the latest guess!
 
C

cjchaps

Diamond Member
Jul 24, 2000
3,013
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I believe another on gravity is that big objects don't "create" gravity, they just block it. For instance, there is gravity everywhere all the time trying to push at objects from every direction. If there is a big object(like the earth) it blocks the gravity pushing you from one side, so the gravity pushing you from the other side has more of an impact on you.
 
HomeBrewerDude

HomeBrewerDude

Lifer
Jan 18, 2001
14,465
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Originally posted by: cjchaps
I believe another on gravity is that big objects don't "create" gravity, they just block it. For instance, there is gravity everywhere all the time trying to push at objects from every direction. If there is a big object(like the earth) it blocks the gravity pushing you from one side, so the gravity pushing you from the other side has more of an impact on you.
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actually, If i remember correctly, gravity is no longer thought to be a PULL force... hence, it wouldn't be a PUSH force either. Einstien theory of relativity says that gravity is a measure of the curvature of space. Of course, i don't think there is any clue as to why matter would 'curve' space. but that is the basic idea.
 
Triumph

Triumph

Lifer
Oct 9, 1999
15,031
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wow, neat. the topic of "the speed of gravity" never gets much attention, but it could have huge implications in the timing of such things as the age of the universe.
 
B

bleeb

Lifer
Feb 3, 2000
10,868
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Gravity is something we dont' fully understand yet... but i've read articles about it possibly being apart of the next form of transportation... for example creating a source of gravity in the front of a vehicle to pull it forward, or above to let it "hover", etc.
 
B

BDawg

Lifer
Oct 31, 2000
11,631
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Originally posted by: Darein
Yeah. An article said that if the sun were to disappear it would take about 8 minutes for the Earth to react.
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At the same time, the second we saw that it disappeared, the effect of gravity would already be on us...so it's not like you'd have 8 minutes for last chance sex.
 
M

Moonbeam

Elite Member
Nov 24, 1999
74,736
6,759
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So what do you call the thing whose gravity is so strong that gravity can't excape? Does energy have gravity? E= mc squared. What is entropy? Does all energy cease to exist and become matter? Where does heat go? Is heat related to gravity? When everything has blead away what happens to the curvature of space? What is it when gravity is all in a space without dimension? Could time be sections across the two sides of the universe comming into existance and disappearing?
 
Vic

Vic

Elite Member
Jun 12, 2001
50,422
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Originally posted by: Howard
Doesn't light take 8 seconds to reach the earth? :confused::confused:
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8 minutes.
Earth has a mean distance of 93,000,000 miles from the sun. Speed of light = ~186,000 miles/second. 93,000,000/186,000 = 500 seconds = 8 minutes 20 seconds (but I rounded down the speed of light so it is actually a bit less).

 
silverpig

silverpig

Lifer
Jul 29, 2001
27,703
12
81
Those LIGO detectors are insane. I read a good article in Scientific American a few months back about them. They have their instruments tuned to a frequency range which is right in the middle of our hearing threshold, so they hooked up a speaker to their recorder just for fun. It's mostly just noise. But they had one guy down at one of the mirrors almost a mile away and he was talking. His voice moved this massive mirror enough that the light beams actually recorded the vibration of the mirror, and the signal was then passed through that speaker. They could actually hear what this guy was saying. Pretty cool stuff.

Now if only they could find the graviton...
 
Hayabusa Rider

Hayabusa Rider

Admin Emeritus & Elite Member
Jan 26, 2000
50,879
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Originally posted by: Moonbeam
So what do you call the thing whose gravity is so strong that gravity can't excape?

An event horizon

Does energy have gravity? E= mc squared.

Yes

What is entropy?

The measure of order in a system


Does all energy cease to exist and become matter?

No

Where does heat go?

Everywhere

Is heat related to gravity?

Don't think so.

When everything has blead away what happens to the curvature of space?

It becomes straighter

What is it when gravity is all in a space without dimension?

It is still gravity, however since everything is together at once, you dont see it. It is known as a singularity and causes fits for physicists

Could time be sections across the two sides of the universe comming into existance and disappearing?

Absolutely
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