I was taking the dog out last night and I started thinking about how predictions of environmental doomsday is little more than soothsaying despite whatever science is behind because we don’t even know all the possible factors that characterize the climate right now and thus its pure folly to try and predict from that incomplete knowledge what the climate will be like years from now. I know they have computer models, but it’s like how the world is modeled in a first person shooter game. You person walks onto a beach and footprints will appear in the sand, but there’s just images of a footprint placed on images of sand which is good enough for the game but not completely accurate. To be more accurate, each individual grain of sand would have to be modeled against the pressure of the ridges of the bottom of the boot leaving the impression. But, even if you accurately modeled each individual grain of sand, it’s still not a completely accurate model of real sand because real sand also has the gravitational effects of absolutely everything in this universe that has any mass.
Wait; is that true? Because some galaxies are red-shifting near the speed of light in relation to us; does there gravity still affect us? Does the speed of the bodies have any effect on gravity, because what is the speed of gravity?
Holy crap… what is the speed of gravity?
In all my years of reading bits and pieces of scientific articles, I don’t recall the propagation speed of gravity coming up. Like, I know that, if the sun suddenly disappeared, it would take about eight minutes for us to see the light go out, but how long would it take for the gravitational change on the earth’s orbit to take effect? My first guess would be it would take the same amount of time as light, but there’s no reason gravity would move at the speed of light since it has no direct relation to a light wave (that I know of). Then again, the only other answer that made sense would be that the gravity propagates instantaneously, but then that would mean you could somehow twiddle with the gravity of something lightyears away and then someone here on earth could use some sort of gravity measurement device to read those changes and convert it to data thus allowing superluminal communication — which I’m pretty sure breaks a law of some sort (a scientific one; not an important one).
Anyway, when I got to my computer, I had to look all that up right away. I googled “speed of gravity,” but what I found only confused me all the more. Apparently, scientists think it could be both infinite and limited by the speed of light at the same time (that’s relativity for you), though some measurements have shown it slower and some faster than light, and, somewhat recently, some scientists think they measured it to be exactly the speed of light, though many are disputing it.
So they don’t know. Is it ever disturbing to you that the science in science fiction often makes more sense than real science? Scientists could just be making all this stuff up (poorly) for all we know. I wouldn’t be that surprised if one day scientists realize that the earth has been sitting on a giant turtle all this time, and all their theories about waves and particles are actually explained by movements of the turtle. And then they’ll all be like, “Wow. We sure wasted our time. And how did we miss seeing that giant turtle? Well, in the future, now we know that, before trying to prove things by measuring fluctuations in pulsars, first look for a turtle.”
That isn’t that probable, but, then again, it is just as probable as whatever actually is… which itself is so improbable that any reasonable man would have to dismiss the possibility of it.
That’s kinda heavy for first thing in the morning, Frank…
Frank…the postulated exchange particle of gravity is believed to be called a ‘graviton’. Since it is ‘massless’, it would have to move at the speed of light. Just like a photon is an exchange particle for light. Or a neutrino, or some other massless particles that I’m forgetting off the top of my head…I used to be a physics major about 30-years ago with a focus on General Relativity (aka Gravity). Remember, just because some scientists believe such and such…doesn’t make it so. I’ve heard some argue that the moon landings were faked, that there is “a face” on Mars, and UFO’s contain little-green men. Or even more recently, that man is responsible for global warming.
If gravity moves slower than light (or faster), than all sorts of basic, natural laws break down, and life as we know it, is all a dream…and I should expect to wake up any moment.
Just my two-cents (and worth every penny!!!)
Roy
By turtle do you mean the Great A’Tuin?
The sudden disappearance of the moon would also cause very disturbing things to happen here on Earth. It would spin much faster for one thing resulting in short four-hour days. Frank would have to blog really fast and we would not have much time to comment/troll on IMAO.
Einstein solved the question about the speed of gravity with General Relativity. If the sun were to disappear now, the earth would still travel in it’s orbit for about 8 minutes. After that time, we would cease to see the sun and begin traveling in a straight line.
It would be great if gravity waves traveled faster than light. Imagine an instant communication system using gravity waves between earth and other planets.
…it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that liberals and their anthropogenic global warming religion is a load of crap.
What makes onion dip so rich and creamy?
Ya…I guess I should have read on after your question before posting
I think it was Hawking who said Gravity does travel faster than light, and that “c” has slowed down since the big bang. Gravity travels at the original SOL but doesn’t slow down, therefore, it is faster.
Then again, supposedly gravity is dispersed through all eleven dimensions. So, how they could ever measure the speed of gravity is beyond me.
I’ve always been more interested in using gravity as a transportation rail than communication means.
M-O-O-N – that spells deep joujou fer sure….
…can’t we just all live in peace & harmony and discuss John Edwards’ great hair….
No need to worry about such things. If we discover that the sun is going to disappear we could hold a rock concert, and that would fix that. We just have to make sure that everyone actually jumps up and down when Madonna asks them to.
Or, we could buy “sun credits” from Al Gore.
Ok, here’s where I get to sound like a L. Ron Paul supporter:
The Speed of light is not a constant, but rather is slowing down at a very slow rate.
Gravity pushes, it doesn’t pull. And gravity, like inertia, is a shadow effect of a all pervasive field of energy some have named the Zero-point energy field.
Once the oppressive priesthood of the Standard Model finally lose control of science education research into the field of SED (stochastic electrodynamics) may yet reveal a means for mankind’s technology to manipulate gravity and inertia for our own selfish goals.
Take that Luna!
42
I heard an interesting theory once that everything in the universe is perfectly balanced including the planets and galaxies and that if even one thing were moved a bit out of line you would not be able to move your hand from your waist to your nose because the gravitational pull would be too great. This obviously points to a designer or creator so it can’t possibly be true because as we know the whole thing just kind of “happened” and we all “evolved” after crawling out of some primordial ooze…
Modern Physics all sounds like BS to me. Every time I watch something about it on TV scientists always use these metaphors and that just leads me to think that modern scientists are idiots. Honestly I understand the basic ideas a lot better then they seem to give me credit for, now if they would please try to explain where that idea came from maybe I wouldn’t think they were stupid.
The fact that life exists only on this one planet (as far as we know) despite the vast improbability of a)life sprouting out of thin air thanks to lightning and amino acids, and b)the billions or trillions of galaxies and stars we know of not producing one planet that is habitable, pretty much points to a Creator.
What I was never able to get a straight answer about, was that if there were positively charged electrons and negatively charged protons, then were their possibly anti-gravitons.
No force can propagate faster than the speed of light. At least thats how I understood the matter. If Hawking says that the speed of light is slowing down then he is opening up a whole can of cosmological worms.
Heres my question: If time slows down for any object approaching the speed of light, then how much time does the light feel has elapsed when it makes, according to our clocks, the 8 minute trip from the sun to earth? This concept is the premiss of the classic movie “Flight of the Navigator”. It was awesome!
Actually, there is no barrier to something moving faster than the speed of light. The barrier is accelerating to or past light speed if you are slower than it as the acceleration would require infinite energy. If you are already moving faster than light, it takes infinite energy to DEcellerate to or past the speed of light.
Assuming of course that the physics they pounded into me 15 years ago is actually truth and not a work of fiction.
“What I was never able to get a straight answer about, was that if there were positively charged electrons and negatively charged protons, then were their possibly anti-gravitons.
Posted by: Writer on July 13, 2007 12:23 PM ”
Actually…no, you can’t. Gravitons are massless particles (like photons). To postulate negatively charged gravitons is like saying a photon (light particle) can hold a charge. Not possible. Electrons (or their anti-particle called positrons) and Protons (anti-protons) are not massless…so they can hold a charge.
That comment was worth one-cent, at least!
I think we’re discussing the wrong question here. Shouldn’t we ask what gravity is? Is it one giant Van der Waals force? For that matter, what is a force? Try to define that without referring merely to its effects.
Person 1: “The earth is sitting on a turtle.”
Person 2: “But what is under the turtle?”
Person 1: “Don’t be silly, it is turtles all the way down.”
Actually Roy, I was taught that Photons are wavicles, and if so, then they would not necessarily refute my original quaestion concerning anti-gravitons.
There is another interesting theory. I don’t have the calcs. right now but if light is slowing down what is happening to our measurment of time? Wouldn’t this be off by quite a lot depending on the rate of deceleration?
Random thoughts;
*…Not only did you dog pee, your dog poo’ed too.
*When light travels thru another medium, say a block of glass, its speed can be measured to be slower then before it transitioned to the new media. Where did that energy go, – possibly heat? Also, when light transitions out of the glass media, it resumes its original speed. Where did that energy come from?
*…Information is instantaneous. (“So sayeth the turtle.”)
I absolutely love questions like this!
I agree with Adam, though. No one really knows what gravity is, so how exactly could we say that it even has a speed? Much less, what that speed is. Yeah, I know “it’s made of massless particles called gravitons,” but as far as I can tell, “graviton” is just another physics word for “we don’t effin’ know yet.” First, we should find out what gravity is, then figure out everything else about it.
The speed of gravity can be measured by a Michael Moore “pooty” minus the weight of Rosie, squared.
I think this is a twist on Schroedinger’s cat: Frank J’s dog.
Your dog may be in a state of quantum flux, better take her to a vet.
What happens when the turtle dies?
I ain’t no physikist, but I know what matters!
If this is the type of mental acuity and logistical acumen that’s endemic to the conservative right, we can expect a Democratic majority for some time.
If the Democratic majority are “mental acuity and logistical acumen,” we’re sunk…
But… Big words, not action, have always been their forte’…
logistical acumen lol
Hahaha. That liberal, Guilty Carnivore, thinks that ad hominem arguments are valid syllogistic logic…but what do I know? I am just an uneducated, ignorant conservative, after all.
I propose that we test it by blowing up the sun, and then seeing if we fly out of our orbit when we see the explosion, or eight minutes earlier.
There is no gravity. The earth sucks.
There is no gravity. The earth sucks.