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NASA Gravity Probe Set for Launch
The Real Dr John writes "NASA announced
yesterday that its longest running program, Gravity Probe B, was ready and
scheduled for launch on April 17th. The project has taken 44 years to complete,
at a cost of approximately $700 million. The reason for the high cost is that
the probe contains the most sensitive gyroscopic equipment ever created, which
will be used to test Einstein's theory of gravity. Einstein predicted that the
gravity created by a large body warped space-time, but he also predicted that if
the large body was rotating it would create a drag effect on space-time
known as frame dragging. Gravity Probe B will be able to test
Einstein's theory using Earth's relatively small gravitational field because the
instruments are so sensitive."
Sounds like a horribly-broken system to me.
/fud
How about we design something that actually works in the real world. Oh, wait. It does. I guess you can't crash a 737 with a cell phone after all.
Someone setup an experiment about 10 years ago with 2 highly percise clocks one was set up on the top of a tall build and the other was set at the bottom...they ticked and stoped at the same exact and the clock on top of the building was very slightly behind the clock on the bottom...so I guess that should say something about his theory of relativaty.
All of them. It's not possible to perform every test of a theory that can be performed, nor is it possible to perform any given test to an arbitrarily high precision. There are tests of quantum electrodynamics that are accurate to 11 decimal places, but people still test QED, because we never know whether it goes wrong at the 12th place, or whether there's some new phenomenon that QED doesn't predict. Likewise, there are many tests of general relativity, many of which are very accurate, and nobody doubt's the theory's general validity --- but that doesn't mean that there might not be small deviations out there that point the way to an even better theory.
And, quite frankly, I'm surprised that there isn't much more VC and grant money available to go and do research on stuff like this. Afterall, these projects are quite prestigious.
If it takes $100 million to find mistakes in the theory, there is very little practical incentive to research it, since more than likely it will take many times $100 million to exploit any of those newly discovered differences for practical gain. Put another way, if existing theories are good enough for all but the most precise applications then only a small number of people working at the very cutting edge are going to care about testing the theory to it's limits.
While it is good for science to check these things out and research foundations do provide money for these types of things, there will always be limited funding when it comes to projects that have no apparent practical value to anyone.
Hmmm. When World War II broke out, the US had discovered that, while its tactics with torpedos were more or less sound, they came to naught -- because the actual torpedos had this nasty habit of breaking apart on impact, rather than (say) exploding. It took two years (and who knows how many lives) to get that problem fixed.
The general rule seems, to my reading of history, to be that the military tends to be effective but not necessarily cost-efficient. Or put another way: Throw enough money at any technological problem and it will be solved. People tend to be freer with the gobs of money if they think it's related to national security.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
Yep. At the start of World War II for the US, in December 1941, it was amongst the weakest military-wise in the world. By August, 1945, less than four years later, it had nuked Japan. Nuked. In 1945. Look at the cars in 1945. Some military dude said "Let's make a bomb" and they built it.
But it cost a few billion bucks. GDP-wise, it was probably the largest project in US history. But such a pretty cloud!
A NYC lawyer blogs. http://www.chuangblog.com/