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New Satellite Experiment Helps Confirm Einstein's Equivalence Principle (presse.cnes.fr)
Part of Einstein's theory of general relativity posits that gravity equals inertial mass -- and for the first time in 10 years, there's new evidence that he's right. Slashdot reader orsayman reports:
Most stories around space today seem to revolve around SpaceX, but let's not forget that space is also a place for cool physics experiments. One such experiment currently running into low orbit is the MICROSCOPE satellite launched in 2016 to test the (weak) Equivalence Principle (also knows as the universality of free fall) a central hypothesis in General Relativity.
The first results confirm the principle with a precision ten times better than previous experiments. And it's just the beginning since they hope to increase the precision by another factor of 10. If the Equivalence Principle is still verified at this precision, this could constrain or invalidate some quantum gravity theories. For those of you who are more satellite-science oriented, the satellite also features an innovative "self destruct" mechanism (meant to limit orbit pollution) based on inflatable structures described in this paper.
"The science phase of the mission began in December 2016," reports France's space agency, "and has already collected data from 1,900 orbits, the equivalent of a free fall of 85 million kilometres or half the Earth-Sun distance."
The first results confirm the principle with a precision ten times better than previous experiments. And it's just the beginning since they hope to increase the precision by another factor of 10. If the Equivalence Principle is still verified at this precision, this could constrain or invalidate some quantum gravity theories. For those of you who are more satellite-science oriented, the satellite also features an innovative "self destruct" mechanism (meant to limit orbit pollution) based on inflatable structures described in this paper.
"The science phase of the mission began in December 2016," reports France's space agency, "and has already collected data from 1,900 orbits, the equivalent of a free fall of 85 million kilometres or half the Earth-Sun distance."
So do cows, which you all are. MOOOOO! MOOOOO! Mooooo cows MOOOOO! Moo say the cows! YOU ORBITAL COWS!!
And this explains why humans have never, and can never, go anywhere near the north and south poles.
north and south poles
Pure inventions on the part of the round-earthers to hide the locations of the edges.
Have gnu, will travel.
Is there any lay text around that explains how the experiment works? The article doesn't have and talks more about space pollution than relativity & gravity.
For those of you who don't pay attention to space matters, de-orbiting satellites is important because of something called the Kessler Syndrome. In effect, too much traffic up there would make it very difficult to get into space for thousands of years. This is also part of why the Chinese anti-satellite weapon test a while back was a big deal.
We try to track everything, especially everything above a certain size, so we can prevent collissions.
There's slightly more than a stub on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Real lawyers write in C++
It's more than the 24-hour news cycle. Twitter, Facebook, and other social media also help perpetuate the adrenaline of electoral strife and factionalism. Unsurprisingly, they are also advertising-supported media. The owners of the media, both the news cycle and the social chatter continuum, also seem personally invested in factionalism and demand "change" and "disruption" and regardless of the topic and entirely despite the disruptive change of ruling faction from one party's near supermajority eight years ago to the other party's majority now - it's not even "change back to the old change" but simply "change for the sake of change." Plato warned of this in the Republic: there is an inherent tendency in generations to change, not always for the better, that a good polity's sustainability and stability temporarily, but not permanently, resists. We have reached the end of our polity's ability to resist destructive change, so we begin the slide from oligarchy through democracy and mob rule into tyranny.
That they may be identical suggests they are the exact same phenomenon, which is cooler than everything else put together.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
This is what we pay taxes for.
Nothing about Trump is made OK by anything about Clinton.
Attempt to distract from the Orange Buffon: failed.
But you'll try again and again, right?
Pure inventions on the part of the round-earthers to hide the locations of the edges.
But the truth of the flat Earth will still win in the end; the Flat Earth Society has now members from all around the globe!
I was missing these AC cow posts. Much more amusing than our recent flat earther coward.
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
Please mod this up "funny"!
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
As our recent flat earth coward knows that all gyroscopes are rigidly fixed in space (he says so!). This is why no one with a laptop with a harddrive (or an iPod) has ever been able to tilt it in operation! Mystery solved!
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
Well you are partly coreect, ot is a theory, which means it makes predictions, those predictions can be tested, and so far those predictions have been proved right every tine. So I would have to dissagree with the second part of your statement. But if you cane produce a repetable experement that dissproves it thrtr is a rather famous comitie in Sweden that would like to hear from you.
”Most stories around space today seem to revolve around SpaceX, but let's not forget that space is also a place for cool physics experiments.”
Well, if the sum total of your science reading amounts to scanning Slashdot headlines, perhaps this is true. But then you probably also believe that the vast majority of financial news stories involve Bitcoin.
Otherwise... no. There’s a lot of very cool real space science going on right now! Meanwhile Musk is essentially running an innovative delivery service.
#DeleteChrome
I can see it in a political discussion. You'd just think nerds could talk about Nerd stuff without bring up political bullshit. Maybe when it gets to GW I could see it but here it's got nothing to do with any of that.
Let's use actual numbers, eh?
g = 9.81 m/s^2 /s
\Omega = 7.3e-5
R = 6380 km
R \Omega^2 is much less than g
Looks like you'll be fine.
To be more precise, R * omega^2 = 0.0337 m/s^2, or about 0.34% of gravitational acceleration.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
Shouldn't that read, "...every corner of the world?"
I can't seem to find anything explaining how the test works. Is it just measuring forces on balls with different densities or something?
No, it means your brain would pop out of your ass when you jumped.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Exactly right. It's an oblate spheroid.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
May I fork your version of the theory? I'd just like to take a stab at it, if I may. Pretty sure I can handle it.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.