[Nebullis]

For your bump list.

[steve-b]

My colleagues and I have successfully experimentally demonstrated that the force of gravitation between two test bodies varies with their orientation in space, relative to a system of distant stars

If so, there should be detectable anomalies in the orbits of asteroids that orbit at an inclination to the ecliptic.

[KayEyeDoubleDee]

Mach's Principle

[rederic]

Not a very skilled leg-pull. Rederic

[NetValue]

The "gravity" of the situation lies in the fact that it shakes the very foundations of every formula in modern physics.

[tictoc]

Swing a bucket of water at the end of rope and centrifugal forces pull it up and away. These forces result from the combined gravitational pull of all the distant stars and planets, Austrian physicist Ernst Mach wrote.

?

I am searching my peanut-sized brain for memories of high-school physics...spitballs ...the clingy sweater on the pigtailed girl ... sorry ... ah yes!

It went something like this: There is no "centrifugal force", inertia makes a body continue in a straight line once it has been set in motion, but the rope and the earth's gravity prevent that (disregarding friction). There was nothing about "pull of all the distant stars and planets". In fact, we were told that astrology was laughable precisely any gravity effect from the planets or stars was so immeasurably small as to be entirely negligible.

Was I told wrong, or this journalist full of it?

[Paradox]

Newton's gravitational constant G "changes with the orientation of test masses by at least 0.054 percent,"

That is quite a large amount actually. When I started reading, I thought it would be something like .0000005474% or something like that. Seems to me this should be confirmable by others..

But it really doesn't matter... there is no "gravity". Truth be told, matter sucks.

[Linda Liberty]

Is this a hoax? .05% is way too huge to be plausible. G has been measured to some ridiculous accuracy. I have to believe something like this would have been noticed before. In fact, I have to believe that a discrepancy of .05% would show up in planetary orbits, or in calculations of missile trajectories. N f-ing way.

[Harrison Bergeron]

"My colleagues and I have successfully experimentally demonstrated that the force of gravitation between two test bodies varies with their orientation in space, relative to a system of distant stars,"

The astrology nuts will have a field day with this one.

[RightWhale]

Tin-foil hat time?

[Physicist]

I see no reason not to accept this result, pending confirmation by other groups. If I were a betting man, I'd say that this is likely to be overturned--extraordinary claims most commonly are--but in the meantime I'll assume it's correct.

It has been known for a few years that there is an anomalous anisotropy in the polarization of the cosmic microwave radiation background. My first test for this new result would be to see whether the two anisotropies line up. If they don't, I would strongly suspect that one of them is wrong.

[apochromat]

"Exactly the right amount of wild ellipicality" bump.

[Junior]

So maybe there is something to astrology ...

[apochromat]

This would indicate that the mass distribution outside the solar system is not as even as it appears, I'd say. I don't suppose this effect could be pointing toward the galactic center. Maybe there's an error.

[apochromat]

Now that I look at it, it seems that external gravity sources would result in stretching along the attraction direction. The effect would be the opposite of what would be the case if the parts of an object attracted each other more strongly along one direction. Spherical distortion would be prolate for a strong gravity from external sources and oblate distortion would be the result for an internally manifested strong gravity direction.