Earth's magnetic field 'boosts gravity'

New Scientist ^ | 09:20 22 September 02 | Michael Brooks

[VadeRetro]

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 most accurate measurements have experimental errors of 1 part in 10,000, yet their values differ by 10 times that amount. So physicists are left with no idea of its absolute value.

Now Jean-Paul Mbelek and Marc Lachieze-Ray of the French Atomic Energy Commission near Paris say they can resolve the contradiction by taking into account the location of the labs where the experiments were carried out.

The pair suggest that electromagnetism and gravity influence one another enough for gravity's pull to be noticeably affected by the Earth's magnetic field.

String theory

Their work is based on theories such as string theory that try to unify all the forces, including electromagnetism and gravity, by invoking the existence of several extra spatial dimensions.

In a paper submitted to Classical and Quantum Gravity and presented at a meeting of the European Astronomical Society in Porto, Portugal, the researchers calculated the values they would expect G to have at different locations around the world. They say it should be greater where the Earth's magnetic field is stronger, with the highest measurements at the north and south magnetic poles.

The rest of the article.

[wendy1946]

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.

That simply is wrong, at least the second part of it. The ESA basically replicated the basic Podkletnov experiment in 06. The problem physicists are having with that is being wedded to Einstein's idea of gravity as some sort of a four dimensional differential geometry thing and Einstein clearly was wrong. You can't reconcile the two.

[wendy1946]

In case you might have missed the reply to vade, the Podkletnov experiment which ESA replicated in 06 strongly suggests that gravity is some sort of an electrostatic dipole effect and not a basic force of nature as has been supposed. There is no reconciling Einstein's view of gravity with the now known ability to mask it.

[Hoosier-Daddy]

This would imply force coupling at low energy states? Interesting potential uses.

[ForGod'sSake]

Thanks Civ. An oldie but a goodie. This and the link to the other thread dovetails with the question I've been looking into lately; that is, can our(or any) magnetic field influence what we've been taught about gravity? Does mass alone determine the strength of a gravitional field??? Or maybe Newton was just flat wrong?

Wendy, you either appear to have some expertise or have studied in this area. Care to educate a layman on this question?

[wendy1946]

Albert Einstein described gravity as a sort of a four dimensional differential gravity kind of thing, basically a property of mass and space.

At least three huge problems have turned up with that claim, any one of which should be enough to sink it:

• The experiments of Eugene Podkletnov and repeated by the ESA in 06 show an ability of spinning superconductors to cloak/shield gravity. Einstein's claims about gravity would not allow that to be possible.
• Einstein's conception of gravity would not allow for the possibility of gravity having undergone any sort of a significant change in the recent geological past on our own planet; yet it is an easy demonstration that it has and that the super animals of past ages on our planet would not be able to function in our present gravity.
• There is a third problem involving gravity and Einstein's claim that information cannot be passed around faster than C. Gravity propagates instantaneously to within our ability to measure it. Every time you take five steps i.e. change your position in space, you are sending a gravitational message out into the cosmos and somebody on the far side of the galaxy with a sufficiently sensitive instrument could read it as it happened; it wouldn't take 50,000 years for the news to get there.

[ForGod'sSake]

Thanks wendy. I'll follow up on those points as time permits. I gather you believe the strength of our gravitational field has been a good deal more or less in times past? If so, what do you think may have been the cause, or a cause of it?

My curiousity about this was raised as I pondered the potential affects if any, of a weakened magnetic field just prior and during polar shifts(not necessarily a pole reversal) on our gravitational field. Thoughts?

[The Comedian]

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[Quix]

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[April Lexington]

This must be why I weigh more sometimes...

[wendy1946]

The heaviest birds which can take off or land in our world (presently) go around 25 lbs and those can just barely take off and land. In past ages there wre 1000-lb flying creatures. Likewise the heaviest animals in our present world go around 14000 lbs and that would be one or two percent of elephants. The question you have to ask is that if those 300,000+ lb sizes were such a winning ticket for dinosaurs which supposedly dominated the planet for tens of millions of years then why in the 65M years which supposedly intervene between our age and theirs, has nothing ever re-evolved to such sizes?? The answer is they can't. The same basic square/cube law which saw to it that it was always the littlest kid in your classroom who could do the most pushups or pullups, would also see to it that such an animal was crushed by his own weight in our present world. Weight is proportional to gravity which is a cubed figure while strength is generally proportional to cross section of bone and muscle, a squared figure. Double your dimensions, and you will cut your power to weight RATIO in half; the factor of two will get figured three times for volume and weight while only twice for cross section and strength. You'll be eight times heavier and only four times as strong.

The root cause in play here is that gravity has to be some sort of an electrostatic dipole effect as Ralph Sansbury and others involved in the Natural Philosophy Alliance are describing. That would allow a different electrostatic environment to create a lower gravity environment. Einstein of course turns out to have been wrong in basically all of his pronouncements about gravity.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks w. I wonder if VadeRetro ever comes by anymore? This is a pretty old topic, and he (?) may have been booted in one of the purges.

[SunkenCiv]

You weren’t kiddin’, I am on the ping list. :’)

[wendy1946]

Thee’s one other funny thing about Eugene Podkletnov i.e. he was fairly easy to get hold of in the late 80s but has gotten much harder to interview during the Putin era. It’s a fairly safe bet that the idea of ultimate control over gravity has national security implications.

[wendy1946]

VR was never booted but he doesn’t deal with FR any more or so he claims.

[The Comedian]

You weren’t kiddin’, I am on the ping list. :’)

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Frowning takes 68 muscles.
Smiling takes 6.
Pulling this trigger takes 2.
I'm lazy.