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WASHINGTON, D.C. - Scientists may not have to go over to the dark side to explain the fate of the universe.The theory that the accelerated expansion of the universe is caused by mysterious "dark energy" is being challenged by New York University physicist Georgi Dvali. He thinks there's just a gravity leak.Scientists have known since the 1920s that the universe is expanding. In the late 1990s, they realized that it is expanding at an ever-increasing pace. At a loss to explain the stunning discovery, cosmologists blamed it on dark energy, a newly coined term to describe the mysterious antigravity force...

HOME PCS MAY PROVE POINT FOR EINSTEIN Published: Tuesday, February 22, 2005 NEWS 01A By Mike Lafferty THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH WASHINGTON -- Want to help Albert Einstein? Turn on your computer. Physicists have announced a plan to marshal hundreds of thousands of computers to confirm one of the great physicist's predictions: Gravity waves exist in the universe. Einstein, who predicted in 1916 that these ripples exist in the fabric of space and time, never thought his theory could be proved. Now, in the centennial year of one of his two theories of relativity, scientists think they have the equipment to...

Plans to trace the Moon's orbit with extraordinary new accuracy could reveal kinks in Einstein's theory of gravity and help explain the mysterious accelerating expansion of the universe, says a US researcher. The acceleration cannot be explained by known forces in the Universe. To account for the behaviour, cosmologists have introduced the concept of a new, as yet unseen, force - dark energy. But Gia Dvali, of New York University, US, believes there could be another explanation. He thinks the accelerating expansion might be caused by unexpected properties of gravity, which are only seen over very large distances. Taking inspiration...

An outcast star is zooming out of the Milky Way, the first ever seen escaping the galaxy, astronomers reported on Tuesday. The star is heading for the emptiness of intergalactic space after being ejected from the heart of the Milky Way following a close encounter with a black hole, said Warren Brown, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. The outcast is going so fast -- over 1.5 million mph -- that astronomers believe it was lobbed out of the galaxy by the tremendous force of a black hole thought to sit at the Milky Way's center. That speed...

Space Future - http://www.spacefuture.com/pr/archive/on_the_practical_and_sporting_aspects_of_football_in_zero_gravity.shtml O Thornton & P Collins, 19 September 2001, "On the Practical and Sporting Aspects of Football in Zero-Gravity", Presented at Symposium on The Popular Commercialisation of Space, British Interplanetary Society, 19 September 2001. Also downloadable from http://www.spacefuture.com/archive/on_the_practical_and_sporting_aspects_of_football_in_zero_gravity.shtml Presented at Symposium on The Popular Commercialisation of Space, British Interplanetary Society , 19 September 2001 On the Practical and Sporting Aspects of Football in Zero-Gravity Oliver Thornton & Patrick Collins Introduction: Association Football, or 'soccer', is the major spectator sport in the world, as well the most widely-played. When space becomes a practical living space for the...

It was in 1980 that John Anderson first wondered if something funny was going on with gravity. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory physicist was looking over data from two Pioneer spacecraft that had been speeding through the solar system for nearly a decade. Only something was off base. The craft weren't where they were supposed to be.

The purpose of FreeRepublic.com's multiple message boards is to limit the topics for each board to particular topics. Posting the same message on all the boards defeats the purpose of multiple-boards for special topics. It is very annoying to see the same message on every bulletin board. PLEASE! DO THE READERS A FAVOR. STOP CROSS-POSTING YOUR MESSAGES!

Was Einstein a plagiarist? By Lucy Sherriff Published Monday 15th November 2004 15:57 GMT A theoretical physicist at the University of Nevada has published a paper alleging that Einstein did not derive the gravitational field equations at the heart of the General Theory of Relativity, and might in fact have copied key equations from fellow physicist David Hilbert. The two scientists were working in the same area in 1915, and were developing their theories independently but concurrently. Each submitted papers for publication throughout November of that year. The two were also corresponding about their research, making it hard to unravel...

Earth's spin warps space around the planet, according to a new study that confirms a key prediction of Einstein's general theory of relativity. After 11 years of watching the movements of two Earth-orbiting satellites, researchers found each is dragged by about 6 feet (2 meters) every year because the very fabric of space is twisted by our whirling world. The results, announced today, are much more precise than preliminary findings published by the same group in the late 1990s. Frame dragging The effect is called frame dragging. It is a modification to the simpler aspects of gravity set out by...

Imagine the weight of a nagging suspicion that what held your world together, a constant and consistent presence you had come to understand and rely on, wasn't what it seemed. That's how scientists feel when they ponder gravity these days.

The European Space Agency is considering a unique experiment that could explain strange gravitational phenomena in the outer solar system. Since 1998 astronomers have known that the space probes Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11 are following trajectories that cannot be explained by conventional physics. Launched in 1972 and 1973, respectively, to explore the outer planets, the Pioneer craft are now at the edge of the solar system, with Pioneer 10 being some 86 astronomical units (about 13 billion kilometres) from the Sun. But they are not quite where they should be, based on the gravitational pull of the known bodies...

Something strange is tugging at America's oldest spacecraft. As the Pioneer 10 and 11 probes head towards distant stars, scientists have discovered that the craft - launched more than 30 years ago - appear to be in the grip of a mysterious force that is holding them back as they sweep out of the solar system. Some researchers say unseen 'dark matter' may permeate the universe and that this is affecting the Pioneers' passage. Others say flaws in our understanding of the laws of gravity best explain the crafts' wayward behaviour. Excerpted - see link

Gravitational anomalies An invisible hand?An unexplained effect during solar eclipses casts doubt on General Relativity “ASSUME nothing” is a good motto in science. Even the humble pendulum may spring a surprise on you. In 1954 Maurice Allais, a French economist who would go on to win, in 1988, the Nobel prize in his subject, decided to observe and record the movements of a pendulum over a period of 30 days. Coincidentally, one of his observations took place during a solar eclipse. When the moon passed in front of the sun, the pendulum unexpectedly started moving a bit faster than...

WASHINGTON (AP) - The United States government could not protect its citizens from the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks because it failed to appreciate the threat posed by al-Qaida operatives who exploited those lapses to carry out the deadliest assault ever on American soil, the chairman of the Sept. 11 commission said Thursday. In issuing the panel's 567-page final report, commission chairman Tom Kean said none of the government's efforts to thwart a known threat from al-Qaida had "disturbed or even delayed" Osama bin Laden's plot. "(They) penetrated the defenses of the most powerful nation in the world," Kean said. "They...

For the second time in three months, scientists confirm that the universe is expanding at an ever faster rate thanks to a mysterious repulsive force called "dark energy" that counters gravity. The findings this time come from observations of the orbiting U.S. Chandra x-ray telescope. The latest batch of findings would probably have made renowned German physicist Albert Einstein exuberant were he still alive. He died in 1955 believing he had made a serious error in devising a concept he called the cosmological constant. He had created the notion in 1917 to explain why the universe did not collapse from...

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2004 April 28 The Smooth Spheres of Gravity Probe B Credit: Gravity Probe B Team, Stanford, NASA Explanation: Does gravity have a magnetic counterpart? Spin any electric charge and you get a magnetic field. Spin any mass and, according to Einstein, you should get a very slight effect that acts something like magnetism. This effect is expected to be so small that it is beyond practical experience and...

Scientists are divided about the use of the Moon as a base to develop ways to travel to Mars, according to reports given to the US government. Some have said the possibility of water-ice existing at the lunar poles would allow a moonbase to use the ice as rocket fuel for a Mars mission. Others contend that it would be too difficult to extract. And there is disagreement about whether the moon is a good alternative to space as a base for advanced telescopes. In January, President Bush redirected the US space effort sending astronauts back to the Moon and...

A physics professor will try to turn back time in an experiment at the Miami Museum of Science. It's back to the future all over again -- at least, that's what Carlos Dolz has in mind. The Florida International University physics professor plans to take time to task at 10 a.m. Wednesday, when he presents an experiment that involves using acceleration to speed up a digital clock by four seconds. Dolz's experiment -- which takes six hours to finish -- will become part of Playing With Time, the current exhibit at the Miami Museum of Science. Dolz, who has been...

The Future According to Professor Paul Davies "Scientists have no doubt whatever that it is possible to build a time machine to visit the future". Since the publication of Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity in 1905, few, if any, scientists would dispute that time travel to the future is perfectly possible. According to this theory, time runs slower for a moving person than for someone who is stationary. This has been proven by experiments using very accurate atomic clocks. In theory, a traveller on a super high-speed rocket ship could fly far out into the Universe and then come back...

[The Cassini spacecraft will reach Saturn in July 2004 and should send the small Huygens probe into the hazy atmosphere of Titan in January 2005. On its way there, Cassini flew nearly behind the Sun from Earth's point of view two years ago, offering a chance for a highly precise test of general relativity. Courtesy NASA/JPL.] Albert Einstein still rules. His 1915 theory of gravity, the general theory of relativity, has just passed its most stringent test by far. Extremely precise measurements of the radio link between Earth and NASA’s Cassini spacecraft, bound for Saturn, match general relativity's predictions extraordinarily...

<p>A 21-year-old Western Washington University student died early Tuesday morning when he fell from a building in the alley between the 1400 block of Railroad and Cornwall avenues while apparently indulging in a pastime known as "urban climbing" or "buildering."</p>

<p>Twelve people attending a gospel music convention at the downtown Ramada Inn and Conference Center on Broadway were injured yesterday after the elevator they were riding in fell at least three stories, Metro fire officials and hotel officials said.</p> <p>''It started to come down, and all of a sudden it took off,'' Clifford Robinson, 76, said about what he described as a ''free fall.''</p>

In trying to predict where earthquakes will occur, few people would think to look at Earth's gravity field. What does the force that causes objects to fall to the ground and the moon to orbit around the earth have to do with the unpredictable ground trembling of an earthquake? Now, researchers at the California Institute of Technology have found that within subduction zones, the regions where one of the earth's plates slips below another, areas where the attraction due to gravity is relatively high are less likely to experience large earthquakes than areas where the gravitational force is relatively low....

Government Ratings I was amused recently to see that the federal government has rated vehicles on their propensity to turn over. Their ratings are based on a math formula, not on a field test. But who needs the federal government to tell them the obvious? Anybody with sense enough to pour rain out of a boot knows that a tall vehicle will tip easier than one built low to the ground. After all, racing cars are not built low to the ground just for looks. Anytime a vehicle gets into a turn, centrifugal force and gravity have a contest. Gravity...

'Potato' Earth's deep secrets By Jonathan Amos BBC News Online science staff It is a map the like of which you have probably never seen before. Gravity highs are marked red; gravity lows are blue The sweep of colours shows minute variations in the Earth's gravitational field. If you were to fly over the red areas, you would be tugged ever so slightly downwards; the blues mark regions where the planet's attraction is much weaker. These gravity anomalies, as they are known, are imperceptible to the human senses, and so the scientists have wrapped the data on to a sphere...

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2003 July 23 GRACE Maps the Gravity of Earth Credit: GeoForschungsZentrum Potsdam, CSR U. Texas, JPL, NASA Explanation: Why do some places on Earth have higher gravity than others? Sometimes the reason is unknown. To help better understand the Earth's surface, slight distance changes between a pair of identically orbiting satellites named GRACE have been used to create the best ever map of Earth's gravitational field. High points...

The joint NASA-German Aerospace Center Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (Grace) mission has released its first science product, the most accurate map yet of Earth?s gravity field. Grace is the newest tool for scientists working to unlock secrets of ocean circulation and its effects on climate. Created from 111 days of selected Grace data to help calibrate and validate the mission?s instruments, this preliminary model improves knowledge of the gravity field so much it is being released to oceanographers now, months in advance of the scheduled start of routine Grace science operations. The data are expected to significantly improve...

Scientists levitate gold coins Scientists have shown that levitation is not just a trick from a Harry Potter book. Researchers at the University of Nottingham have used magnetism to make solid objects such as coins float in the air. Scientists have already proven strong, varying magnetic fields could exert an upward force on objects in their path. The Nottingham team found this effect could be dramatically enhanced in cold, magnetised oxygen. Magnetic levitation occurs when the magnetic force is strong enough to overcome gravity and balance a body's weight. Cold oxygen provides extra buoyancy through the "magneto-Archimedes" effect -...

Source: University Of California, Berkeley Date: 2003-03-14 Search For ET To Look Again At 150 SignalsBERKELEY ? After more than a million years of computation by more than 4 million computers worldwide, the SETI@home screensaver that crunches data in search of intelligent signals from space has produced a list of candidate radio sources that deserve a second look. Three members of the SETI@home team will head to Puerto Rico this month to point the Arecibo radio telescope at up to 150 spots identified as the source of possible signals from intelligent civilizations. SETI@home is a computer program disguised as...

    Gravity test confines string theory dimensions   19:00 26 February 03   NewScientist.com news service   Gravity has been tested over a shorter distance than ever before. Using a delicate apparatus to measure gravitational forces over just a tenth of a millimetre, a team of physicists has found that they are roughly as Newton's laws predict. The result narrows down the possible nature of hidden extra dimensions, which would boost gravity over small scales. It is extraordinarily difficult to measure gravity over short distances, because weights that are small enough to be manipulated and held so close together only exert...

Extra Dimensions Showing Hints Of Scientific Revolution Chicago - Feb 19, 2003 The concept of extra dimensions, dismissed as nonsense even by one of its earliest proponents nearly nine decades ago, may soon help solve seemingly unrelated problems in particle physics, cosmology and gravitational physics, according to a panel of experts who spoke Feb. 15 at the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting in Denver. "It doesn't happen often that you get a confluence of ideas and experiments that come together and it's something that obviously would change your whole way of looking at the universe,"...

If Newton saw today's astronomical evidence, would he come up with a different law of gravity? A growing number of people think so, says Marcus Chown There's something wrong with our understanding of spiral galaxies such as our own Milky Way. The stars in their outer parts are being whirled around far too fast. Like children on a speeded-up roundabout, they should be flung into intergalactic space. To explain why this does not happen, astronomers have been forced to propose that the visible stars and nebulae are supplemented by at least 10 times more invisible stuff. The gravity of this...

Physicists leveled heavy criticism Thursday on a report from last week that claimed the speed of gravity had been determined by observation and was equal to the speed of light. One physicist called the interpretation of the finding "nonsense". Others were more diplomatic, suggesting that the experiment, involving observations of the bending of light from a distant galaxy as the light sped by the planet Jupiter, had instead measured other phenomena. The brewing controversy, which illustrates the fits and spurts with which science sometimes grudgingly moves forward, appears to have ground to a stalemate for now as the two scientists...

Hubble can see further than ever before Friday, 10 January, 2003, 22:09 GMT Hubble's 'zoom lens' probes deeply The impressive Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) aboard the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) has used a natural "gravitational lens" far off in space to boost its view of the distant Universe. The image obtained by the HST offers an unprecedented and dramatic new view of the cosmos, promising to shed light on galaxy evolution and dark matter. Though gravitational lensing has been studied previously, with Hubble and ground-based telescopes, this phenomenon has never been seen in such detail. Astronomers will spend...

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2003 January 8 Abell 1689 Warps Space Credit: N. Benitez (JHU), T. Broadhurst (Hebrew Univ.), H. Ford (JHU), M. Clampin(STScI), G. Hartig (STScI), G. Illingworth (UCO/Lick), ACS Science Team, ESA, NASA Explanation: Two billion light-years away, galaxy cluster Abell 1689 is one of the most massive objects in the Universe. In this view from the Hubble Space Telescope's Advanced Camera for Surveys, Abell 1689 is seen to warp...

The speed of gravity has been measured for the first time. The landmark experiment shows that it travels at the speed of light, meaning that Einstein's general theory of relativity has passed another test with flying colours. Ed Fomalont of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in Charlottesville, Virginia, and Sergei Kopeikin of the University of Missouri in Columbia made the measurement, with the help of the planet Jupiter. "We became the first two people to know the speed of gravity, one of the fundamental constants of nature," the scientists say, in an article in New Scientist print edition. One important...

Issue 6.03 - Mar 1998 Breaking the Law of Gravity By Charles Platt Skeptics had a field day when a scientist claimed in 1996 that gravity could be negated. Now his findings are being investigated in laboratories worldwide. In 1996, Russian émigré scientist Eugene Podkletnov was about to publish a peer-reviewed article in the respected British Journal of Physics-D - proving, he claimed, that gravity could be negated. Then a London newspaper publicized his conclusions, and the skeptics had a field day. Everyone knew you couldn't mess with the law of gravity - Einstein himself had said so. Podkletnov...

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2002 October 8 The X-Ray Jets of XTE J1550 Image Credit: CXC, NASA; Illustration Credit: M. Weiss (CXC) Explanation: The motion of ultra-fast jets shooting out from a candidate black hole star system have now been documented by observations from the orbiting Chandra X-ray Observatory. In 1998, X-ray source XTE J1550-564 underwent a tremendous outburst. Jets of material sent streaming into space at near light-speed impacted existing gas...

Exclusive from New Scientist Hidden extra dimensions are causing measurements of the strength of gravity at different locations on Earth to be affected by the planet's magnetic field, French researchers say. This is a controversial claim because no one has ever provided experimental evidence to support either the existence of extra dimensions or any interaction between gravity and electromagnetism. But lab measurements of Newton's gravitational constant G suggest that both are real. Newton's constant, which describes the strength of the gravitational pull that bodies exert on each other, is the most poorly determined of the constants of nature. The two...

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2002 September 8 Too Close to a Black Hole Credit & Copyright: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) Explanation: What would you see if you went right up to a black hole? Above are two computer generated images highlighting how strange things would look. On the left is a normal star field containing the constellation Orion. Notice the three stars of nearly equal brightness that make up Orion's Belt. On the...

Reprinted from ScienceDaily Magazine ...Source:             NASA/Marshall Space Flight Center Date Posted:    Thursday, August 01, 2002Web Address:   http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/08/020801080835.htm Chandra Discovers "Rivers Of Gravity" That Define Cosmic Landscape NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory has discovered part of an intergalactic web of hot gas and dark matter that contains most of the material in the universe. The hot gas, which appears to lie like a fog in channels carved by rivers of gravity, has been hidden from view since the time galaxies formed. "The Chandra observations, together with ultraviolet observations, are a major advance in our understanding of how the universe evolved over the last 10 billion...

Mysterious Shift in Earth's Gravity Suggests Equator is Bulging By Robert Roy Britt Senior Science Writer posted: 02:00 pm ET 01 August 2002 Something strange has been going on under our feet for the past four years. Earth's gravity field suddenly shifted gears and began getting flatter, reversing a course of centuries during which the planet and its gravity field grew rounder each year. The scientists who noticed the change and report it in the Aug. 2 issue of the journal Science suspect Earth itself may be flattening out, with the oceans rising near the equator, but they aren't...

NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory has discovered part of an intergalactic web of hot gas and dark matter that contains most of the material in the universe. The hot gas, which appears to lie like a fog in channels carved by rivers of gravity, has been hidden from view since the time galaxies formed.

Anti-gravity propulsion comes ‘out of the closet’ By Nick Cook, JDW Aerospace Consultant. LondonBoeing, the world’s largest aircraft manufacturer, has admitted it is working on experimental anti-gravity projects that could overturn a century of conventional aerospace propulsion technology if the science underpinning them can be engineered into hardware.As part of the effort, which is being run out of Boeing’s Phantom Works advanced research and development facility in Seattle, the company is trying to solicit the services of a Russian scientist who claims he has developed anti-gravity devices in Russia and Finland. The approach, however, has been thwarted by Russian officialdom.The...

Monday, 29 July, 2002, 03:23 GMT 04:23 UK Boeing tries to defy gravity An anti-gravity device would revolutionise air travel Researchers at the world's largest aircraft maker, Boeing, are using the work of a controversial Russian scientist to try to create a device that will defy gravity. The company is examining an experiment by Yevgeny Podkletnov, who claims to have developed a device which can shield objects from the Earth's pull. Dr Podkletnov is viewed with suspicion by many conventional scientists. They have not been able to reproduce his results. The project is being run by the top-secret Phantom Works...

Boeing confirms research to defy gravity Boeing has confirmed it's carrying out tests on several anti-gravity devices which could allow almost fuelless aircraft and huge spacecraft. The company wants to join forces with a Russian scientist who claims to have developed a way to shield objects from gravity. Dr Yevgeny Podkletnov was ridiculed by sections of the science community when he released details of his research in 1996. He claimed objects above a spinning, superconducting disc lost weight, but other researchers say they have been unable to validate the results. A Boeing spokesman said: "We feel there is a basic...

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2002 July 8 Weighing Empty Space Credit & Copyright: Bell Labs-Lucent Technologies, AURA, NOAO, NSF Explanation: Sometimes staring into empty space is useful. Pictured above is a region of sky that was picked because it had, well, nothing: no bright stars, no bright galaxies, and no picturesque nebulas. What could not be avoided, however, were a few stars in our own Galaxy, and many distant galaxies strewn across...

PHYSICS A Philosopher's Stone COULD SUPERCONDUCTORS TRANSMUTE ELECTROMAGNETIC RADIATION INTO GRAVITATIONAL WAVES? BY GEORGE MUSSER MAKINGWAVES Like an ordinary magnetic field, a gravitomagnetic field exerts a force on moving masses at right angles to their velocity. The rotating earth, for example, generates a gravitomagnetic field that torques satellite orbits, as observations over the past several years have confirmed. The Gravity Probe B satellite, scheduled for launch early next year, should precisely measure this effect, which is also known as the Lense-Thirring effect, or "frame dragging." Even if Chiao's contraption works, it wouldn't allow the generation of antigravity fields, as...

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2002 May 6 NGC 4676: When Mice Collide Credit: ACS Science & Engineering Team, NASA Explanation: These two galaxies are pulling each other apart. Known as "The Mice" because they have such long tails, each spiral galaxy has likely already passed through the other and will probably collide again and again until they coalesce. The long tails are created by the relative difference between gravitational pulls on the...

XMM-Newton showed that energy can escape from a black hole Far away among the stars, in the Ara constellation of the southern sky, a small black hole is whirling space around it. If you tried to stay still in its vicinity, you couldn't. You'd be dragged around at high speed as if you were riding on a giant flywheel. In reality, gas falling into the black hole is whirled in that way. It radiates energy, in the form of X-rays, more intensely than it would do if space were still by tapping into the black hole's internal energy stream. ESA's...