Astronomers at the worlds largest radio telescopes are gearing up to measure the speed of gravity.It is the first attempt to verify a key prediction of Einsteins theory of general relativity, which says that nothing, not even the influence of gravity itself, can travel faster than light.No one has ever tested this prediction, even though the assumption that gravity travels in waves or gravitons with a finite speed underpins much of theoretical physics. The difficulty is that if light and gravity travel at the same speed, how can you hope to see evidence of gravitys speed?The answer, says Sergei Kopeikin of the University of Missouri, Columbia, is by watching a distant quasar as the planet Jupiter moves in front of it and its gravity bends radio waves from the quasar. This event is due to happen over the weekend of September 7 and 8. "When I first gave a talk about the idea everybody got excited and said we have to do this," says Kopeikin.
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99992763
Popular Posts
-
The concept of dragons was probably brought to Japan around 2,000 years ago, along with the technology for paddy agriculture. Their images h...
-
...why was this given the file name of skyfall?... Certain information, while not specific as to target, gives the government reason to beli...
-
Someone that gets it. Service-oriented software, when done correctly in a platform-agnostic way can be flexible, cheap, and can motivate m...
-
Peruvian archeologists have discovered the first full Inca burial site at Machu Picchu since the famous mountaintop citadel was discovered 9...
-
http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail94.html
-
http://esamultimedia.esa.int/images/marsexpress/377-260208-2149-6-co-01-HebesChasma_H1.jpg
-
From the bygone debates over DDR vs. RDRAM to the current controversy over Apples DDR implementations, one issue is commonly misunderstood i...
-
In my mind, this is a huge waste of effort. Put a base on Mars instead of the Moon -- there's huge science finds waiting there to be dis...
-
... or, Decemberween. Whatever. http://www.homestarrunner.com/xmas04.html
-
It looks like this might be real -- a Canadian company succesfully demoed a 16-qubit quantum computer which solved sudoku puzzles, seating...
