Putting Relativity To The Test, NASA's Gravity Probe B To Reveale If Einstein Was Right

Stanford University ^ | 10/3/2005 | Bob Kahn

[Southack]

Related FR threads:
How Einstein may have got the theory of relativity wrong

Light may arise from relativity violations

[Southack]

A scale model of the GP-B spacecraft is combined with a photo of the Earth and a gravity well to illustrate how the GP-B experiment works. (CREDITS: GP-B Image Archive, Stanford University)

[inquest]

A scale model of the GP-B spacecraft is combined with a photo of the Earth

That's to scale? Damn, that's a huge satellite.

[JRios1968]

So if I gather correctly, the satellite will take pictures of Ted Kennedy to see how light bends around him?

[Continental Soldier]

"They won't know for another 15 months, when the analysis has been completed, but physicists around the world are eagerly awaiting the results." Please, give me a break! This is a non-news story! Get back to me in 15 months! You know, there are a few things that I'm eagerly awaiting too, but, until they come to pass, I don't plan on making any announcments! Geeze!

[AntiGuv]

gravity well ping!

[punster]

Maybe, the results will help those who do not understand the gravity of the situation. :-)

[AntiGuv]

Maybe the satellite's just a whole lot closer than the earth. Don't forget, it's all about your reference point!

[Tijeras_Slim]

Given NASA's recent track record, I'll put my money on Albert. He always came in under budget too.

[sticker]

alcohol fumes bend light?

[JRios1968]

No, massive bodies do.

[Right Wing Assault]

a paper on light that garnered him the Nobel Prize in 1921

A paper on light. That's a bit of an understatement on the photoelectric effect. It's like saying the special theory of relativity was a paper on motion.

[AndrewC]

And the answer is ......

42

[inquest]

Oh, but...uh, well...

[RightWhale]

It's kind of interesting that a moving medium will carry ripples along with it. Space itself can move if this experiment pans out.

[inquest]

With general relativity, Einstein forever changed our Newtonian view of gravity as a force, postulating rather that space and time are inextricably woven into a four-dimensional fabric called spacetime, and that gravity is simply the warping and twisting of the fabric of spacetime by massive celestial bodies.

But it's still a force. No matter how you slice it, any time a mass starts to move in a particular direction, a net force is acting on it, by definition.

[inquest]

Space itself can move if this experiment pans out.

Would that then mean that there's such a thing as an absolute positional coordinate system? That would completely take the realitivity out of Relativity, wouldn't it?

[bdfromlv]

cant you tell from the 6pm to 12 midnight bar women pictures. if thats not bent light just wait til you wake up and turn over in the morning.

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

Degeneracy pressure is the only thing that keeps him from collapsing into a black hole.