How to see quantum gravity in Big Bang traces

The cosmic microwave background sky, here mapped by NASA's Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe, has a polarization, represented by white bars. Future experiments might measure the polarization with enough sensitivity to prove the existence of gravitons, the quanta of gravity.

Can a quantum of gravity ever be detected? Two physicists suggest that it can — using the entire Universe as a detector.

Researchers think that the gravitational force is transmitted by an elementary particle called the graviton, just as the electromagnetic force is carried by photons. But most of them despair about ever recording individual gravitons. That is because gravity is so weak that any interactions between gravitons and matter are thought to be beyond human ability to detect in the foreseeable future.

Some physicists, including Freeman Dyson at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, have gone further and claimed that building a graviton detector may actually be physically impossible. Several kinds of detectors have been proposed, but they would fail owing to a combination of instrumental and quantum noise, Dyson said at a conference in Singapore last month in honour of his 90th birthday.

Step 1) Take your pencil along with you to an amusement park.
Step 2) Buy some tickets.
Step 3) Find the spinning puke machine where the floor drops out from underneath your feet while you are left plastered to the wall.
Step 4) Hold out your pencil and try to drop it. It sticks to the wall right alongside you (probably after it hits you in the face).

Viola!!! No Gravitons needed to explain what happened.

Note: The "puke machine" ride is often called the "Gravitron." Not to be confused with the hypothesized "Graviton." ImJustAnotherOkie wrote "Gravitron." Ergo, I was having a little fun.

UNIFORM CIRCULAR MOTION

Applying this to The Gravitron Puke Machine example I gave in my last comment:

Simply put, the pencil is accelerated in the circle along with you. When you hold the pencil out, it is still attached to your arm. Therefore, you are still imparting inertia to the pencil while still confining it to a circular path (albiet, a smaller circular path than what you, yourself are experiencing). Side note: I guess I could get more precise with my terms, but "inertia" is close enough and keeps it simple.

When you let go of the pencil (after positioning your hand with your fingers pointed towards you), it still has its imparted inertia and wants to travel in a straight line at an approximate right angle relative to the center of the puke machine. (Think of the pencil as being "flung" out from its orbit).

You, however, are still travelling in that circular path while the pencil is now travelling in a straight line tangental to the arc from which it left.

Your confined circular motion allows you to intercept the pencil as it is "flung" along that tangental straight line.

From your perspective, the pencil fell back towards you.

If you don't believe me, try it yourself. I did it at Six Flags with a gumball or something when I was younger.

No graviton needed...but, you WILL need The Gravitron Puke Machine!

:)

Cheers!

I guess it would work unless you had arms 10+ feet long and the pencil was close to the centered in the drum. The pencil would not have enough inertia to overcome the gravity drop of 32 feet per second per second and would hit the bottom of the drum. I guess then it would work its way to the side?

Yup. Now you’ve got it!

And, yes, it would quickly work its way to the side because the bottom of the Gravitron’s drum is also spinning.

BTW - I remember watching a kid puke in the Gravitron. The puke pooled up behind his head and stayed that way throughout the ride. Then, when the ride slowed down and gravity took over, it dripped all down his back. Not a pretty sight!

Cheers!

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.