Gravity detector could provide clues to the shape of the universe

St. Louis Post-Dispatch ^ | Monday, January 8, 2007 | Eric Hand

[SunkenCiv]

Ramanath Cowsik, a Washington University physicist, will poke and prod at some of the most daunting problems remaining in physics:

• What is causing the universe to fly apart, faster and faster each year?
• Why is gravity so weak and so different from the other basic forces in the universe? And what is the true shape of the universe?

In an era of big science -- billion-dollar space telescopes and atom smashers -- Cowsik's approach is refreshingly small. The apparatus, called a torsion balance, is cheap and based on a centuries-old idea. He says the torsion balance will cost about $100,000. When complete, it could measure gravitational forces as small as the weight of a bit of a salt grain cut into 60 billion pieces... Late in his career, Cowsik, 66, is joining a handful of laboratories around the country that are chasing gravity down to small spaces. In those spaces, the scientists suspect, the formula for gravity might not hold.

[SunkenCiv]

Perhaps also see the contrasting view (links) at:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1764549/posts?page=8#8