Stanford’s Gravity Probe B confirms two Einstein theories
After 52 years of conceiving, testing and waiting, marked by scientific advances and disappointments, one of Stanford’s and NASA’s longest-running projects comes to a close with a greater understanding of the universe.
Stanford and NASA researchers have confirmed two predictions of Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity, concluding one of the space agency’s longest-running projects.
Known as Gravity Probe B, the experiment used four ultra-precise gyroscopes housed in a satellite to measure two aspects of Einstein’s theory about gravity. The first is the geodetic effect, or the warping of space and time around a gravitational body. The second is frame-dragging, which is the amount a spinning object pulls space and time with it as it rotates.
After 52 years of conceiving, building, testing and waiting, the science satellite has determined both effects with unprecedented precision by pointing at a single star, IM Pegasi, while in a polar orbit around Earth. If gravity did not affect space and time, Gravity Probe B’s gyroscopes would point in the same direction forever while in orbit. But in confirmation of Einstein’s general theory of relativity, the gyroscopes experienced measurable, minute changes in the direction of their spin as they were pulled by Earth’s gravity.
The findings appear online in the journal Physical Review Letters.
“Imagine the Earth as if it were immersed in honey. As the planet rotated its axis and orbited the Sun, the honey around it would warp and swirl, and it’s the same with space and time,” said Francis Everitt, a Stanford physicist and principal investigator for Gravity Probe B.
A lasting legacy
“GP-B confirmed two of the most profound predictions of Einstein’s universe, having far-reaching implications across astrophysics research,” Everitt said. “Likewise, the decades of technological innovation behind the mission will have a lasting legacy on Earth and in space.”
Stanford has been NASA’s prime contractor for the mission and was responsible for the design and integration of the science instrument and for mission operations and data analysis.
Much of the technology needed to test Einstein’s theory had not yet been invented in 1959 when Leonard Schiff, head of Stanford’s physics department, and George E. Pugh of the Defense Department independently proposed to observe the precession of a gyroscope in an Earth-orbiting satellite with respect to a distant star. Toward that end, Schiff teamed up with Stanford colleagues William Fairbank and Robert Cannon and subsequently, in 1962, recruited Everitt.
NASA came on board in 1963 with the initial funding to develop a relativity gyroscope experiment. Forty-one years later, the satellite was launched into orbit about 400 miles above Earth.
The project was soon beset by problems and disappointment when an unexpected wobble in the gyroscopes changed their orientation and interfered with the data. It took years for a team of scientists to sift through the muddy data and salvage the information they needed.
Despite the setback, Gravity Probe B’s decades of development led to groundbreaking technologies to control environmental disturbances on spacecraft, such as aerodynamic drag, magnetic fields and thermal variations. The mission’s star tracker and gyroscopes were the most precise ever designed and produced.
Played a role in developing GPS
Innovations enabled by GP-B have been used in the Global Positioning System, such as carrier-phase differential GPS, with its precision positioning that can allow an airplane to land unaided. Additional GP-B technologies were applied to NASA’s Cosmic Background Explorer mission, which determined the universe’s background radiation. That measurement is the underpinning of the “big bang theory” and led to the Nobel Prize for NASA’s John Mather.
“The mission results will have a long-term impact on the work of theoretical physicists for years to come,” said Bill Danchi, senior astrophysicist and program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “Every future challenge to Einstein’s theories of general relativity will have to seek more precise measurements than the remarkable work GP-B accomplished.”
Over the course of its mission, GP-B advanced the frontiers of knowledge and provided a practical training ground for 100 doctoral students and 15 master’s degree candidates at universities across the United States. Over 350 undergraduates and more than four dozen high school students also worked on the project, alongside leading scientists and aerospace engineers from industry and government.
Sally Ride, the first American female astronaut in space, worked on GP-B while studying at Stanford. Another was Nobel Laureate Eric Cornell, who also studied at Stanford.
NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., managed the Gravity Probe-B program for the agency. Lockheed Martin Corporation of Huntsville designed, integrated and tested the space vehicle and some of its major payload components.
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Learn a lot more on testing Einstein’s theories here h/t Dr. Leif Svalgaard via email
Myrrh says:
May 9, 2011 at 7:11 pm
Leif – clocks are only one way of measuring time, they do not represent Time.
Subjective feeling of what time is does not enter the picture, but experiments show that every person, animal, or thing measures, feels, sees, whatever, time different from any other person, animal, or thing [depending on their relative motion] and every person, animal, thing measures, feels, sees, whatever space different from any other person, animal, thing [depending on their relative motion]. This makes time and space very slippery concepts that are rather useless as measures of reality since everybody’s measure is different. Physicists like to remedy that defect in concepts by combining the slippery space and time into spacetime, and call THAT reality, because everybody will measure, see, feel, whatever, the SAME interval [as it is called] between two events in spacetime and agree to what it is. In this sense we have an objective definition and measure of reality that everybody can agree on.
The rest of your explanation about gas, fluid, etc is I’m sorry to say just junk. Sometimes I think you are close, but then you regress and slide backwards.
But in reality we don’t observe the same time and space agreeing to see space and time in the same way does not make it real (for example calculating a global average temperature that nobody observes).
Bart says:
May 9, 2011 at 7:27 pm
Please do me the courtesy of reading through this thoroughly before responding. I have put significant effort into explaining these things to you, and I’m not going to respond anymore to anything which ignores what I have already explained.
Regardless that you haven’t extended the same courtesy to me? Well, OK, but it is getting tedious that you bring in material without relating it to the specific point I’m making.
Re my: “That doesn’t mean “Time” has slowed down.. ..that someone won’t age as fast in space as they would on the ground, do all the molecules in the body slow down in aging? Or just in efficiency?”
Maybe it would help you to consider something more elementary. Time is also affected by relative motion (Special Relativity). Etc. etc. etc..
And just how does all this “etc.” answer the question I posed? I should be grateful if you’d take the time to digest what I’ve said and with your clearly detailed knowledge of Einstein’s various theories, give me answer to my actual question.
I shan’t ask again because I’m finding it rather tedious to waste so much of my time trying to bring some people’s attention to my actual points, as others are of hearing me do this, and not getting any answers that actually relate to them specifically as actually asked. I’ve of course heard that scientists are absent minded, but I thought this was because they were so well able to direct their concentrations on specific problems, here it appears the converse…
However, having looked up some on Special Relativity, in response to your post, I see it is something I would like to explore more, to think about. But not in any detail here, because it is actually irrelevant to the subject I’m trying to discuss which is General Relativity, as the subject of the thread. But, if you can come up with an answer to my question, as above in this post, re it, please do; I’d be interested to hear it and shall add it to the information I’ll take with me when I do have the time to explore it further.
Leif says:
May 9, 2011 at 7:42 pm
Re my: “clocks are only one way of measuring time, they do not represent Time.”
Subjective feeling of what time is does not enter the picture, but experiments show that..
As above in my reply to Bart, I do think this subject is fascinating, and would love to discuss it further when I have the time, but,
The rest of your explanation about gas, fluid, etc is I’m sorry to say just junk. Sometimes I think you are close, but then you regress and slide backwards.
Well, that’s Myrrh’s Theory of Gravity, as I outlined above. I say it has an excellent chance of being proved correct because the states of matter of solid, liquids and gases are so very very well known to applied Scientists who for example actually understand what is happening around a speeding golf ball in the fluid Air around it, of what is happening in the border when two surfaces meet such as a ball in a bath of water and so on, can calculate such stuff.
As I said, there is nothing in the descriptions of General Relativity that include ‘time’, it is merely an unproven assumption that there is such a thing being warped, and nothing in the descriptions of the method the Earth is supposedly warping this that can be successfully extrapolated into 3D reality as it stands; the descriptions are all of Space being warped. And, there is nothing in the descriptions by the scientists who have conducted and analysed the experiments of Gravity Probe B to suggest they have even come close to proving General Relativity, on the other hand, they fully confirm only that the Earth is in a Fluid which it moves around.
What more do you want for basic confirmation that my premise that this is no more or less a problem than that of a body with mass moving in a fluid, such as the golf ball in Air?
I have confirmation that my premise to my theory is real. There is no confirmation forthcoming that General Relativity’s premise is real.
As Einstein said – “The ether of the general theory of relativity is a medium which is itself devoid of all mechanical and kinematic qualities, but helps to determine mechanical (and electromagnetic) events.”
http://www.tu-harburg.de/rzt/rzt/it/Ether.html
And that’s the problem, why it doesn’t make sense and no confirmation has yet been found to show it is real (as several others have noted, the Gravity B probe has had to torture the data to make its claims) because it doesn’t take into account that the Ether is an entity in its own right, another form of matter perhaps, but certainly which has been shown to be a Fluid in the common science understanding of Fluids, therefore, it should act as do other fluids around bodies, exerting pressure, clinging to bodies in flight etc., just as do fluids like gases and liquids.
What is junk and simply illogical, is Einstein’s assertion that this Ether Honey is itself devoid of natural qualities as all other matter. But somehow, miraculously, it acts upon matter without physical means. [Einstein’s Ether is his God, no? ]
So, to the experiments and general extrapolations from known natural science towards proving Myrrh’s Theory. [that, from one or more in combination, of pressure of the Fluid Space Ether on the Earth if in closed environment such as ball suspended in water in a bath where the pressure of water is acting equally on all sides of the ball; this amount of Fluid Space clinging in stillness beneath the boundary layer of slurpy Fluid Space tumbling past it such as when the golf ball is hit at speed through the less dense fluid of the gas Air; the spin of the Earth which is creating a vortex extending into the fluid space pulling stuff in. Which is Gravity. So, gravity is this space stuff at the speed which this pressure of fluid space exerts on the Earth or the speed it is being pulled in by the spin of the Earth or both, and which varies depending on the mass/conditions of the different bodies; and so falling bodies only under gravity, which is the definition of freefall, fall at exactly the same speed because within this and so travelling at the same speed as the fluid space meeting Earth.] Extrapolated from ball in bathtub, what would be the weight of the pressure being exerted on the Earth by Honey Space Ether to force itself at the speed of gravity we feel on Earth? Ditto the layer of still fluid space sticking to Earth in flight through it as the golf ball, and what would have to be the strength of the spin to pull in this fluid to achieve the rate of gravity on Earth? Since we know, well some do, the rate at which the Earth spins creating the Coriolis effect, is it possible to work out more details of the qualities of the Space Fluid? How much ‘finer’ it is than fluids like gas and liquids, air and water? And amount of it? Does this relate to the missing dark matter, i.e., is it dark matter?
An interesting post from a seaman in a discussion about the vortex created by the spin of the Earth in the different directions water goes down a plug hole in opposite hemispheres (this must also be relevant to the way Air of our atmosphere is moved around in the different hemispheres, that wind (Air on the move) stays in circulation according the hemisphere it is in, i.e. Wind circulations do not cross hemispheres, there is some mixing at the equator, but otherwise the circulation is confined to the hemisphere the gas Air is in.)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/notesandqueries/query/0,5753,-20326,00.html
So, gravity then like water and air, depending on the spin of the Earth, would be in free fall at the equator??
Anyway Leif, I say that General Relativity’s premise is what is Junk here, which is why there has been no success at all in proving it and the claim that Gravity B has somehow proved something of it doesn’t bear close scrutiny. The objections others have made here in this regard re methodogy and interpretation and so on are pertinent. Anyone here with the necessary skills to look at Myrrh’s Theory..? Or combined skills?
Myrrh says:
May 10, 2011 at 4:14 am
Well, that’s Myrrh’s Theory of Gravity
So you finally came out of the closet. Experience shows that confronted with believers of such caliber, no attempt of further education is possible.
? Leif, what do you mean? I’ve explained here that I’ve only just, in this very discussion, worked it out. I’ve never thought about it before.
Now, what was Einstein saying about time….?
Myrrh says:
May 10, 2011 at 4:14 am
“As I said, there is nothing in the descriptions of General Relativity that include ‘time’… the descriptions are all of Space being warped.”
Ah… that’d be no. The metric of General Relativity is specifically formulated to produce an interval of “proper time”, and relate it to “coordinate time” and space.
Myrrh, you just do not understand enough about the subject even to know what to criticize, and seemingly have no wish to learn. Instead, you insist on playing the role of a quixotic warrior, assaulting the most heavily fortified sections of the castle with a garden hoe, dreaming of rescuing the fair Dulcinea del Toboso imprisoned within. I do not see any point in continuing to play a part in this fantasy.
Astronomy Picture of the Day: May 10, 2011
Gravity Probe B Confirms the Existence of Gravitomagnetism
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap110510.html
The diagram notes:
Frame Dragging Precession = 39 milliarcsec/year
Geodetic Precession = 6606 milliarcsec/year
neither is given an uncertinty measurement.
lunisolar precession = 50287.2 +/- 0.5 milliarcsec/yr.
http://www.astro.spbu.ru/astro/publications/tsvetkov/tsv-precppm.pdf
(this paper supports a correction of -3.8 +/- 0.5 milliarcsec/yr to the IAU 1976 value of 50290.966 milliarcsec/yr.
lunisolar precession is the observed astronomic precession, which must include the Geodetic and Frame drag(?) effect. The uncertainty in the lunisolar precession is less than the frame dragging amount.
The difference between de Sitter precession [Geodetic] and Lense–Thirring precession (frame dragging) is that the de Sitter effect is due simply to the presence of a central mass, whereas Lense–Thirring precession is due to the rotation of the central mass. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geodetic_effect
The [Earth] Precession (axial rotation) was later explained by Newtonian physics. Being an oblate spheroid, the Earth has a nonspherical shape, bulging outward at the equator. The gravitational tidal forces of the Moon and Sun apply torque as they attempt to pull the equatorial bulge into the plane of the ecliptic. The portion of the precession due to the combined action of the Sun and the Moon is called lunisolar precession. Which amounts to 49,900 (+/- 200)milliarcsec/yr. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precession#Astronomy
don penman says:
May 9, 2011 at 11:00 pm
“…for example calculating a global average temperature that nobody observes.”
The problem with that is that it actually has limited physical meaning, as temperature is an intensive property. That is why Pielke, Sr. is so adamant that the proper metric for climate change is the extensive measure of ocean heat energy.
Re: Stephen Rasey says: May 5, 2011 at 8:48 am
Ring Laser Gyro around Earth’s equator.
If a Frame Drag effect for Earth is on the order of
39 milliarcsec/year, and
the time for a light pulse to circle the earth in a ring laser gyro fiber
(assuming index of refrac about 1.62 = 200,000 km/sec as speed of light,
Circumference of 40,000 km) = 0.2 seconds.
Then the frame drag in the time for the light to make it’s loop is
7.6 E-09 meters at the surface of the earth.
which is about 0.02 wavelengths of visible light,
and the time for the light pulse to span that distance is:
3.8 E-17 sec.
Myrrh says:
May 10, 2011 at 9:45 am
I’ve explained here that I’ve only just, in this very discussion, worked it out. I’ve never thought about it before.
Well, you got it wrong. But, I don’t think you came completely blank into this very discussion. If you did, then the seeds we try to sow fell on completely barren ground.
You can think what you like Leif, I’ve explained how I came into this and that it was my first opportunity to actually question people about it. But you’re right, I didn’t come into this “completely blank”, I came with enough intelligence to use the internet for my own searches specifically here as I’ve used it to explore the properties of gases etc. when I wanted to understand why AGW said a heavier than air molecule could stay up in the atmosphere accumulating etc., from which I learned about heat capacities and ideal gas laws and so much more.
Bart – re your last post to me: /#comment-657331
As I said earlier to Leif, it doesn’t matter what you call it, the Space that is supposedly being warped, or what you decide to attribute as its properties which I realise is so heavily ingrained in the ‘spacetime’ idea that it becomes difficult for some to separate that out from the mechanics of the ‘concept of the warping’.
The mechanics of the concept of warping are as described in the diagram, and stated ad infinitum by those teaching General Relativity. It is simply describing a 3D body warping the 3D space around it. The diagram is a two dimensional representation of a three dimensional scenario. There is no time element involved in the mechanics of the concept, only body plus space around it.
The 2D description cannot be extrapolated out the 3D in real space of a space which is an entity in its own right and so not only can be affected by other matter but also can affect other matter. The Gravity B probe has proved one great thing, it is a real something, described as a fluid, like honey, which is being moved about. It is therefore not the ether or space or spacetime of Einstein’s which quote I gave above, which he says has ‘no mechanical or kinematic properties but helps in determining mechanical events’ which is simply an assumption that such a static entity exists, and simply also ridiculous in the light of his use of it by saying it can be warped – if it can be warped, it can be moving, and if it’s moving it has kinetic energy. Gravity B has shown that it is moving.
[And this, Leif, is my method, I come across something relevant and explore it, to remind myself what these terms mean and further my own understanding, as I’ve just done now by making a search on kinetic and mechanical to remind myself so able to add the elaboration on my theme I’ve just written to Bart.]
http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=0030nq
See section III Longer Science Explanation
So Bart, re your comment about my state of knowledge, or rather lack of it, in this subject. I think it has been to my advantage here. I have managed to explore this which was puzzling to me because it was never explained in the times I’ve seen it demonstrated when I couldn’t get answers to my own questions about it, the guy on the other side of the TV screen couldn’t hear me.., in a discussion which I joined in because others too saw the same disjunct I did and a discussion full of interesting observations from all posters here about the experiment itself as well as the subject generally which is very much appreciated, even from those I’ve disagreed with. I’ve enjoyed it, particularly so because I’ve sorted out in my own mind how gravity could work in light of the known science about matter in normal 3D reality and I no longer have to shout at the TV screen. Whether I’m right or not it’s been an interesting journey. So, good bye and thanks for all the fish.
“So, good bye and thanks for all the fish.”
I fear it was nothing but a gnab gib.
What has a beginning …
Sadly Bart I shall have to leave discussing Einstein’s light which on first thoughts during this discussion it seems to me could be could be confusing perception with absolutes and I have no problem with SR if it’s a measure to ‘standard’ i.e. our human, perception, but I have a prior engagement with the water cycle (and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere in case you extrapolate a nuance too far…). My initial search, during this discussion and this morning, turned up these pages, on the basics and on recent research :
http://abyss.uoregon.edu/~js/ast122/lectures/lec20.html
http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Relativity/SpeedOfLight/speed_of_light.html
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn6092-speed-of-light-may-have-changed-recently.html
And just now, a page including the various theories kicking around, http://www.speed-light.info.index.html
Oh heck, when something grabs my attention…
Paradox Resolved:
http://www.enterprisemission.com/speedlight.html
Enjoy!
Myrrh says:
May 11, 2011 at 2:29 am
Oh heck, when something grabs my attention…
Paradox Resolved
The ‘paradox’ was due to the effect of thermal radiation [from the nuclear reactor on board] and the force it can bring to bear on a surface. Radiation facing outwards, for example, radiates directly into space with an effect that cancels out. But radiation emitted toward the center of the spacecraft is reflected by the high-gain antenna and the main equipment compartment. See http://www.centauri-dreams.org/?p=17427
Possibly so. There’s an awful lot on variability of constants, isn’t there?
On the fine structure constant
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/06/060609122206.htm
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/04/070402153241.htm
I rather like the comment Moffat from a 1999 paper “It is easier for me to question Einstein’s theory than it is to assume there is some kind of strange, exotic matter around me in my kitchen.” http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1999/10/991005114024.htm
Myrrh says:
May 11, 2011 at 8:08 am
Possibly so. There’s an awful lot on variability of constants, isn’t there?
It is important that we all the time investigate these things and everybody wants to prove Einstein wrong. To date, no such variations have been established and no-one has proven Einstein wrong. But the search goes on, as it should.
Myrrh – this is what I mean by “you just do not understand enough about the subject even to know what to criticize.” Were the speed of light to change, and there is no remotely compelling evidence yet that it ever has, if reference frames do not transform according to the Galilean Transformation, then there is warping of time and space involved. And, the departure from Galilean rules is always observable at sufficiently high relative speed (where the signal to noise ratio allows us to see it).
You keep overgeneralizing, picking out any minor unresolved issue (even if it is more than a decade old, and you are unaware of the resolution since) as “proof” that the entire concept is wrong, even when the unresolved issue itself requires subtraction of all the other larger effects predicted by the theory to see.
This is no house of cards you are assaulting, it is a massive work of stone – not impregnable, but assuredly permanent. You are not going to gain entry, much less bring it to collapse, by chipping a few shards of rock from the foundation, even if that is, indeed, where the pebbles you put on display came from.
On the issues of dark energy and dark matter: I found it pretty hokey the first time I heard of it, too. But, then I started reading about it. It is no flippant, notional WAG. The subtle thought which has gone into developing the concepts is a tour de force of human reasoning and logic. Which is not to say that it is correct, just that it cannot be flippantly dismissed, and the plans to search for its signature are solidly grounded.
And, if that signature is not found, does that mean the entire edifice of GR will crumble? Hardly. An analogous situation would be the building of a skyscraper – we have reached 3000 feet of solid concrete and steel, but the latest additions wandered off the CG and they are leaning. Do we tear down the entire tower and start building anew? Or, do we simply rebalance the upper stories, and continue building upward?
From Nature today:
http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110511/full/473131a.html?WT.ec_id=NATURE-20110512
“The project was soon beset by problems and disappointment when an unexpected wobble in the gyroscopes changed their orientation and interfered with the data. It took years for a team of scientists to sift through the muddy data and salvage the information they needed.”
I read a fair amount of the discussions between Bart, Myhrr and Svalgaard because I am attracted to the passion that ignites such sparks in a discussion and so I may have missed someone else commenting on the mission’s “problems”. I’m suspicious of such mathematical corrections to a problem with the main instrument on board in such a delicate test. It could be that rather than admit that the mission was a mechanical failure they mathematically rationalized out the results – after all it was decades in development and was expensive – “we gotta do something”.
Unfortunately, though, when you are testing such a fundamental theory, it seems to me you would have to assume the theory is correct to make the adjustment calculations to your satisfaction, otherwise how can you say that you have tested the theory and found it correct. Isn’t it also possible that the wobble developed in the gryroscope was a manifestation of a real effect caused by the real factors defining something different than Einstein’s gravitational theory. One could prove the Titanic unsinkable by mathematically moving everything out of the ships way until it went to the scrap yard. Sorry guys, we got to do this over again just to see if we end up with the same wobble.
Gary Pearse says:
May 11, 2011 at 10:42 am
we got to do this over again just to see if we end up with the same wobble.</i<
Has already been done: From Nature today:
http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110511/full/473131a.html?WT.ec_id=NATURE-20110512
Gary Pearse says:
May 11, 2011 at 10:42 am
“Sorry guys, we got to do this over again just to see if we end up with the same wobble.”
True enough, Gary. It is difficult to argue that this particular experiment does more than prove that the data do not flatly contradict the theory. However, as Leif’s Nature article discusses, there have been other tests of the precession and frame dragging effects, and there will be at least one additional test soon. Furthermore, other tests of other aspects of GR all tend to confirm it as a whole. Regarding this point, you may think of it as a function for which we have several data points, and we are interpolating the function between the data points with GR. It would be truly astounding if there were a sudden discrepancy between reality and the smoothly interpolated curve.
“Isn’t it also possible that the wobble developed in the gryroscope was a manifestation of a real effect caused by the real factors defining something different than Einstein’s gravitational theory.”
It’s possible, but not very likely. They are trying to measure such a tiny signal, and random and unrelated effects due to imperfections in the instrument make it very difficult to see that signal in the first place.
“…I am attracted to the passion that ignites such sparks in a discussion…”
We learn by doing, and I find nothing helps me understand concepts better than having to explain them to someone else. Which is why I often find myself explaining my researches to my wife who, bless her heart, has a difficult time with fractions. If I can make her understand it, then I know I understand it.
“If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.”
– Albert Einstein
Bart says:
May11, 2011 at 9:30 am
Myrrh – this is what I mean by “you just do not understand enough about the subject even to know what to criticize.”
Bart, give me a break from your patronising, will you?
We each have various skills and talents, mine is spotting nonsense…
How about attempting to answer my question about aging in space?
I realise I’m treading on toes here, of those for whom Einstein is some kind of hero, but until you can show that his idea of ‘space-time’ in General Relativity has any actual real credibility as a concept then all the ‘proofs’ that you keep churning out are still merely 3D effects. When I ask ‘where is time in the GR diagram?’, you come back with the repeated strange idea that mass bends time, but it’s nowhere to be found on the diagram. All we see is bog standard three dimensional space which is being warped. And then you give me ‘proof’ that light bends around planets and again this comes with the unsubstantiated ‘and time’, when it was already part of the thinking in 3D space. Einstein’s ‘warping time’ is an illusion.
Back to Gravity B in opening post – “if gravity did not affect space and time” – where is time being affected?
What did they find? Only that normal 3D space was affected.
How does the gyroscopes being affected by gravity prove that the Earth is warping time? How does a spinning Earth pulling space around it, no different as I’ve shown in normal science understanding of bodies in motions in fluids, prove that Earth is warping Time?
What’s wrong with this experiment is that they’re proving nothing at all about what they claim to be proving. Nothing that 3D science doesn’t already explain or can’t extrapolate to. They’re merely confirming normal 3D science knowledge.
I’m sorry, I’m really not impressed.
Anyway, I thought I’d take a look at the Mercury example you bring attention to as proof of Einstein’s GR. Now, I know that many ancient civilisations kept meticulous records of planetary movements and observed phenomena, the Chinese liked tracking comets, the India Vedas which go back 10,000 years have many descriptions of events in their history together with what was happening in the skies at the time, so can be accurately dated now with our computerised ability to backtrack, and so on. But, the first thing I found was again the wiki page on beginning history of the previous centuries to Einstein, and I thought I should take a closer look at that first.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tests_of_general_relativity
Scroll down to “Perihelion precession of Mercury”
It appears that Einstein’s 43″ has now been superceded by more accurate measurements, 56″, his now being only a part of the mix.
The next section: “Deflection of light by the Sun”, gives some background history, that “Henry Cavendish in 1784 and Johann Georg von Soldner in 1801 had pointed out that Newtonian gravity predicts that starlight will bend around a massive object. The same value as Soldner’s was calculated by Einstein in 1911 based on the equivalence principle alone. However, Einstein noted in 1915 in the process of completing general relativity, that his (and thus Soldner’s) 1911-result is on half of the correct value. Einstein became the first to calculate the correct value for light bending.”
It was because of this, because confirmed by Eddington, that Einstein’s theory of gravity became famous and when asked what his reaction would have been if his general relativity had not been confirmed by Eddington, he quipped – “Then I would feel sorry for the dear lord, the theory is correct anyway.”
So, next step. I looked up to find Soldner’s connection in all of this, since Einstein initially agreed with him.
And I found this: http://www.scribd.com/doc/30416020/Johann-Georg-Van-Soldner-1801-light-bending-historical-mistake-and-Einstein-s-time-travel-stupidy
Intrigued, how could I resist? So what do you make of it?
I’ll tell you what I think possible. I think that Einstein spotted Soldner’s maths error and corrected the error, which if Soldner has spotted it would have ‘doubled’ to the now famous Einstein’s ‘proof of his warped time theory of gravity’. Simply by attaching, superimposing, his strange SR light travelling perception and time bending masses in a kinetic and mechanical 3D ether while claiming it wasn’t kinetic and mechanical, and everyone fell for it. Because, wow, what a concept!
Grin.
Possibly. So I investigated further. http://www.wbabin.net/eeuro/vankov.pdf
Seems Einstein corrected his work so many times never again referring to the original which Schwarzshild said had such a surprising result having come out of his fantasy land explanation.
Do read 2.1 Comments 2.1.1. Historical remarks.
It’s very funny. Einstein’s correcting as he goes, or as others have calculated perhaps, continues to maintain that he’s saying the same thing. Does so remind me of AGW arguments from the warmists, who are similarly adept at claiming they were always saying that warming means it will get colder..
..you of course Bart, will be able to follow the maths, me, I just pick out that no one has as yet satisfactorily shown that mass warps time and if the mess of arguments about it at Einstein’s time are anything to go by as Vankov tells it, no one not even Einstein himself understood what he was saying.
No wonder none of you can explain how “time” gets warped by bodies, and all your experiments can be explained in 3D space, and why all the ‘equations work’, all fits in. As in the Gravity B, you squash whatever results you get into Einstein’s time, which is purely imaginary, and refuse to see it’s saying nothing at all about it.
What a genius.
Here’s another example of how not impressed I am, as with the Gravity B gush, http://www.einstein-online.info/elementary/gravWav
“With space and time not as a rigid background structures, but as dynamical objects (changing as the world changes in and around them), general relativity predicts fundamentally new phenomena. One of the most fascinating is the existence of gravitational waves: small distortions of space-time geometry which propagate through space as waves!”
And goes on to compare it with sound waves. How can you not see this is our normal 3D reality with Space still fully part of it in its physics? The only people who can be amazed by such “fundamentally new phenomena” are those who’ve never known or have rejected that finer and finer manifestations of energy are our 3D reality, who think perhaps that space is empty or a vacuum and so are unduly excited by such a claim.
Certainly one thing, Einstein’s description of his ether is at total odds with the claimed effects he gives such as gravitational waves which can only come from an ether with mechanical and kinetic energy.
Bart and Leif, and anyone else interested, this paper claims it gets Einstein’s result from Maxwell, i.e. without any need to invoke GR. http://www.mrelativity.net/Papers/14/tdm13.pdf
What I see is that warping time can’t be shown; that all these so called proofs of GR are still 3D space calculations from known work of the day and with fudging to date to claim GR responsible; that it upsets a lot of people when this is pointed out.
And for the last, scientists are no more objective than the rest of us when it comes to emotional attachments being criticised.
Anthony – you invite people to post on this site anonymously and then say if they want respect they should ‘come out from behind the curtain’, whatever that means for you. It is you who show, by tedious repetition of this, lack of respect to the posters here when you castigate someone for posting anonymously. So now it’s confirmed for me too, as I’ve seen you do so often, and have cringed every time, you have no respect for the majority of your posters. If you want to know everyone’s name, then set up a blog where it is required. Or stop whinging.