It is proven. Gravity expands at speed of light

[Tripledoc]

Gravity expands at speed of light

It was proven today that gravity expands at the speed of light. This proves Einsteains theory. newton was convinced that the speed of gravity was infinite. The speed of gravity has until now been an unknown constant.

It was discovered that the planet Jupiter would pass by (as seen from earth) the quasar JO842+1835 on september 8 2002. This meant that radiowaves from the quasar would be slightly bent as they passed the gravitational pull of Jupiter on their way to earth. the signal was picked up by the Very Long Baseline Array, a collection of large radio recievers on Earth placed in Hawaii, United States and Germany.
The accuracy of the experiment compares to measuring the thickness of a human hair as seen from a distance of 400 kilometres.

Until know gravity has been the great unknown and it is thus a step forwards towards a total and collective understanding of laws of the universe.

[Dauphin]

Link?

[MrWhereItsAt]

Speaking as a postgraduate Physics student, how does that prove anything beyond the fact the light is affected by gravity? Please give us a link, or explain further. You have intrigued me - can you give me more?

[Dauphin]

http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/html/20030108T210000-0500_37778_OBS_EINSTEIN_FINALLY_PROVEN_RIGHT_ON_GRAVITY_SPEED.asp

[Tolls]

It's in today's New Scientist...there's a link on the New Scientist site to snippets from the article.

[Dauphin]

Re: It is proven. Gravity expands at speed of light

Originally posted by Tripledoc
The accuracy of the experiment compares to measuring the thickness of a human hair as seen from a distance of 400 kilometres.

Such analogies can be misleading.

Here it is: gravity does move at the same speed as light. Our actual figure was 1.06 times the speed of light, but we have an error of plus or minus 0.21. (...) This vindicates Einstein's instinct when formulating his general theory of relativity."

[Seeker]

https://www.space.com

I am Cybersix on their boards, but I don't post much 'cause they're overrun by UFO nuts and van Flandern foolios.

What does this mean for Inflation? How can space expand faster than gravity, if gravity is the curvature of space?

[Tripledoc]

My information was from the Tycho Brahe institute in Denmark. Incidentally Ole Roemer, another Dane, was the first to approximate the speed of light sometime in the 17th century. Funnily enough by observing Jupiters moons.

edit: name confusion corrected

[alva]

Why do I always feel like a 4 year in these kinds of threads

* and another thing flies over alva's head *

[Rogan Josh]

It's not really much of a surprise since GR has been experimentally tested and gravity propagating at c is an essential ingredient of GR. But it is nice to have a direct test too

[reds4ever]

Originally posted by alva
Why do I always feel like a 4 year in these kinds of threads

* and another thing flies over alva's head *

yep, i'm the same, i'm interested in this sort of stuff, but need it broken down into 'coffee table book' style before i can digest it!!

[Tripledoc]

I don't know much about the theoritical stuff either.
But I think its fun to think that the force which keeps you to the ground has a definate speed.

By the way is an anti-gravitational device possible in theory?

[chequita guevara]

Is gravity a wave or a particle or both?

[Az]

I think both, but it could be neither.

Both, because everything has wavelike properties. But AFAIK, the wave's frequency is a function of It's mass, and I really don't see the messanger particles of gravity being influenced by each other.

In short: I don't know.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by MrWhereItsAt
Speaking as a postgraduate Physics student, how does that prove anything beyond the fact the light is affected by gravity? Please give us a link, or explain further. You have intrigued me - can you give me more?

I am with you. The test only detects electromagnetic waves, not gravity. If anything, it shows that EM waves travel at c, which is something we know.