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Cassini Experiment Confirms General Relativity

Posted by michael on from the it's-all-relative dept.

MikeZilla writes "An experiment by Italian scientists using data from NASA's Cassini spacecraft, currently en route to Saturn, confirms Einstein's theory of general relativity with a precision that is 50 times greater than previous measurements."

1 of 58 comments (clear)

  1. Cute, but by CheshireCatCO · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Nice measurement, no doubt. But the article is a bit misleading. This isn't the most precise measurement of GR, just the most precise mesurement of this prediction. It sounds like they got this measurement to an error of one part per fifty thousand. If memeory serves, the measurements of the orbit on pulsar 1933+16 (the one that netted Taylor and Hulse the Nobel Prize about a decade ago) are precise to one part in something lik ten to the eleventh. And they agree with GR.

    One some level it amazes me that GR passes every test we throw at it with such flying colors. On another level, I agree with Albert: the theory is too beautiful *not* to be true.