Slashdot Mirror
Stellar Trio Could Put Einstein's Theory of Gravity To the Test
sciencehabit writes "In a cosmic coup, astronomers have found a celestial beacon known as a pulsar in orbit with not one, but two other stars. The first-of-its-kind trio could soon be used to put Einstein's theory of gravity, or general relativity, to an unprecedented test. 'It's a wonderful laboratory that nature has given us,' says Paulo Freire, a radio astronomer at the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Bonn, Germany, who was not involved in the work. 'It's almost made to order.'"
Thank you for being a friend
Traveled down the road and back again
Your heart is true, you're a pal and a cosmonaut.
And if you threw a party
Invited everyone you knew
You would see the biggest gift would be from me
And the card attached would say, thank you for being a friend.
I'm very happy to see that Einstein's theories are being tested. I only hope that the Slashdot beta site underwent even a minimal level of testing before it was unleashed upon us. But given its many, many flaws, I have doubts that any testing was performed. Come on, Slashdot. The new design is atrocious. There is so much wasted space. The stories are harder to read. The story pictures are too damn large. The discussions are difficult to read and participate in. The site feels like it loads a lot slower for me.
Please, get rid of the beta. I would be very disappointed it if ever went live, especially if the existing site (which itself is a big step backward from its predecessors) becomes unavailable at that time. The beta site is clearly a failure. The comments I've seen about it indicate near-universal hatred for it. Since it's so unwanted and so despised by everyone, it'd be best just to scrap the entire project.
Isn't that the point of a Beta release? To obtain feedback and to fix what isn't right with something?
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
n-body calculations are hard enough with Newtonian physics. The "Einsteinian physics" calculations must be a bit maddening, but at least they have found a star system to test it out.
Priest: "Universe from nothing, no laws of physics, sped up time"+ huge discrepancies. Creationism? No. Big Bang Theory
You're welcome, Earthlings...
Exploring space from our computer chairs and with our mathematical models! Awesome. Imagine if we had complete nutcases in charge of science who'd insist we have to send *people* to the pulsar to explore it?
The summary is light on any details, so here:
The distinctive new system opens the way for testing a concept behind general relativity known as the equivalence principle, which relates two different conceptions of mass. An object's inertial mass quantifies how it resists pushing or pulling: It's easier to start a stroller rolling than a car because the stroller has less inertial mass. A thing's gravitational mass determines how much a gravitational field pulls on it: A barbell is heavier than a feather because it has more gravitational mass.
The simplest version of the equivalence principle says inertial mass and gravitational mass are equal. It explains why ordinary objects like baseballs and bricks fall to Earth at the same rate regardless of their mass—as legend claims Galileo showed by dropping heavier and lighter balls from the Leaning Tower of Pisa.
The strong equivalence principle takes things an important step further. According to Einstein's famous equation, E = mc2, energy equals mass. So an object or system's mass can be generated by the energy in the gravitational fields within the system itself. The strong equivalence principle states that even if one includes mass generated through such "self-gravitation," gravitational and inertial mass are still equal. ...
By tracking the system's evolution, Ransom and colleagues should be able to tell whether either the inner white dwarf or the pulsar falls faster toward the outer white dwarf and test strong equivalence about 100 times as precisely as before, Damour says.
"Gravitational Field"... space-time curvature "field"? Uhm, "gravitational mass" vs "inertial mass" equivalence... "explains why" o_O? Shh! The astrophysicists are over. Don't mention the Higgs!
In all seriousness, we know damn well Einstein's equations are simply better approximations / explanations than Newton's approximations are -- It's only a matter of time before we prove them "wrong" (but still damn good and useful approximations, like Newton's) -- We just need some elusive experimental evidence to prove it, and this could be it due to the large gravitational coefficients and a steady measurement scale provided in the pulsar. That is, unless Einstein's approximation turns out to be more accurate than our observations of this system. It shouldn't be any more of a "revolution", as TFA states, if the observations prove to be in violation of the equations: We should be trying to find better equations anyway thanks to that whole Standard Model thing, and we are. Physics seems to goes through these periods where a bunch of new theories explain various things to a precision, the precision is surpassed in observations, and then someone like Newton, Einstein, Feynman, Hawking, etc. comes along and presents elegant / unifying equations to explain the disparate pieces better. Looks like we're still in the middle of the very important prove old-theories "wrong" (read: inaccurate, conflicting with some observations) and scratch our head over tests for new hypotheses to fit more accurate measurements stage.
In a cosmic coup, astronomers have found a celestial beacon
Mmm...cosmic soup with bacon!
Some problems shouldn't make it past the design phase, let alone through alpha and into beta.
Not a sentence!
True. That should never have made it to the beta stage.
More importantly, a beta should be to get feedback, and aside from writing comments in articles that have nothing to do with it, I see no obvious feedback forum.
Ok, help my layman ass out here. IIRC, according to Einstein, acceleration and gravity aren't just similar phenomena, but are the exact same phenomena, and, since you are always travelling at c through the combined spacetime continuum, which gravity warps, the gravitational pull is you actually accelerating through this warped spacetime.
That seems way too freaking cool to fail at some umpteenth decimal.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Again with the Relativity. We have another chance to invalidate this Einstein's jewish Science.
It's too bad Einstein isn't around to help out with this. I am certain he would be a great asset.
I would like to point out that only gravitational relativity has been "proven", and only with atomic decay.
The standard model itself starts to have more in common with religion than real science once you dig into it. I suppose the LHC could be thought of as a billion dollar temple. Last I checked, math isn't a substitute for actual observations, yet the standard model is presented as fact.
... since you are always travelling at c ...
Light travels at c in a vacuum and anything with mass does not. Be wary of anyone who tells you otherwise.
(I'm a physicist)
on top left of the main site there's a link to http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/sdredesign
Sneak teach kids Algebra using a game
resistance is futile. free the innocent stem cells
Einstein's theory is completely incorrect. Famous equation E=mc2 is incorrect as well. "The proof" of formula's accuracy is based upon experimental fact that derrivative of energy released in atomic fusion (dE) equals derrivative of product of mass and speed of light squared (dmc2). However, _integral_ of this equation equals E=mc2+C, with C being a constant, so Einstein's formula would be correct only if mentioned constant equals zero. Contemporary theorethical physics is meeting a dead end mainly because of incorrect assumption that interstellar space is empty, meaning its energy equals absolute zero (constant C equals zero in Einstein's equation). In reality, interstellar space is filled with vast energy and matter of great density, whereas mass represents effect of local changes in basic density and basic energy. Much more about this, including calculated gravitational constant, can be read online in my book: http://www.vasiona.rs/
much more modern looking, it works fine for me. I can reply to stuff, understand the threading and generally it works just great.
I am serious and open for discussion.
Whose to say it wasn't? Maybe some advanced civilisation built it to test just this principal. Maybe we are simply looking over the shoulder of someone else's work. How do they correctly reference that in the eventual paper? :-)
Bob.
Don't confuse beta with alpha please.
Einstein's French science.
I come here for the love
Since De Pretto and Preston and Poincare and Newton all were ether advocates, isn't it about time we try some ether theories once again?
I come here for the love
The article suggests that E=MC^2 does not solely mean antimatter and matter collide and tada you get energy or that a hadron collide can convert energy into matter. They claim that mass that is moving contains energy and thus generates more mass/gravity. I certainly don't remember learning THAT in school. I know if you're heavy and moving fast, more time will occur throughout the mass but they didn't say gravity would increase. Then they refer to "self gravitation" as in the object pulling in on itself as in the expected gravitational field of anything with mass larger than a singularity, which IS inline with normal physics. Can anyone verify that they're actually correct on that other point or is it as nonsensical as it sounds?
"Made to order?" Hmm, so the creationists are right after all. There is a creator and he clearly likes science...
Could have been worse I guess.
Stefan Axelsson