Gravity.... looks like our laws are flawed

[wacki]

Reading a bunch of threads about how Voyager's funding shouldn't be cut because (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A23500-2005Apr3.html) it's about to run into the Heliopause (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heliopause) (insert anti-bush rhetoric) I ran into this article:


http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/mystery_monday_041018.html

Which talks about how gravity may not work in the way we thought as voyager isn't where it's supposed to be. Apparently scientists are having a rough time explaining this. I just thought that was kind of interesting.


http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4f/Voyager_1_entering_heliosheath_region.jpg/800px-Voyager_1_entering_heliosheath_region.jpg


BTW here are some space Technology links (only for the uber nerdy)
http://nmp.jpl.nasa.gov/ds1/tech/index.html
space tug
http://www.andrews-space.com/en/corporate/Smalltug(200411).htm
Nuclear rockets
http://www.merkle.com/pluto/pluto.html
orion drive
http://www.engin.swarthmore.edu/~tcronin1/Orion.htm
lots of other thrust techs
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=145149&threshold=4&commentsort=0&t id=226&mode=thread&cid=12155834

[MelchyBeau]

there is an orbital gravitational observatory and a few ground based ones. I have toured one of them. it was the laser interferomter Gravitational Wave observatory in Livingston La

Link (http://www.ligo-la.caltech.edu/)

We don't even know how gravity is felt. There is a theorized particle called the graviton that some people believe is the force carrier.

Here is the issue though, there is no time lag in feeling the gravitational force. Imagine that you had a star, and all of a sudden a planet miracualously formed, it would INSTANTLY be affected by the gravitational pull of the star.

Melch

[pzhon]

[ QUOTE ]
Here is the issue though, there is no time lag in feeling the gravitational force. Imagine that you had a star, and all of a sudden a planet miracualously formed, it would INSTANTLY be affected by the gravitational pull of the star.

[/ QUOTE ]
Are you saying the effects spread at the speed of light, or do you think you can establish absolute time by observing gravity? If the former, your wording is poor. If the latter, you disagree with a lot of physicists.

[PairTheBoard]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Here is the issue though, there is no time lag in feeling the gravitational force. Imagine that you had a star, and all of a sudden a planet miracualously formed, it would INSTANTLY be affected by the gravitational pull of the star.

[/ QUOTE ]
Are you saying the effects spread at the speed of light, or do you think you can establish absolute time by observing gravity? If the former, your wording is poor. If the latter, you disagree with a lot of physicists.

[/ QUOTE ]

If the effects of gravity are felt by being in the midst of curved space time then I can see how the planet might instantly "feel" the star's gravity because the planet would pop into existence in the midst of a space time curvature that's already there. However, I don't see how the Star would instantly "feel" the planet's gravity since it would seem to take some time for the InstaPlanet to curve space time around it.

PairTheBoard

[AngryCola]

I'm still working on that damn Unified Field Theory.
Just give me a few more years. /images/graemlins/cool.gif