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trendal
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Towards a new test of general relativity?
#5434915 - 03/23/06 03:15 PM (17 years, 10 months ago) |
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Towards a new test of general relativity?
Scientists funded by the European Space Agency have measured the gravitational equivalent of a magnetic field for the first time in a laboratory. Under certain special conditions the effect is much larger than expected from general relativity and could help physicists to make a significant step towards the long-sought-after quantum theory of gravity.
Just as a moving electrical charge creates a magnetic field, so a moving mass generates a gravitomagnetic field. According to Einstein's Theory of General Relativity, the effect is virtually negligible. However, Martin Tajmar, ARC Seibersdorf Research GmbH, Austria; Clovis de Matos, ESA-HQ, Paris; and colleagues have measured the effect in a laboratory.
Their experiment involves a ring of superconducting material rotating up to 6 500 times a minute. Superconductors are special materials that lose all electrical resistance at a certain temperature. Spinning superconductors produce a weak magnetic field, the so-called London moment. The new experiment tests a conjecture by Tajmar and de Matos that explains the difference between high-precision mass measurements of Cooper-pairs (the current carriers in superconductors) and their prediction via quantum theory. They have discovered that this anomaly could be explained by the appearance of a gravitomagnetic field in the spinning superconductor (This effect has been named the Gravitomagnetic London Moment by analogy with its magnetic counterpart).
Small acceleration sensors placed at different locations close to the spinning superconductor, which has to be accelerated for the effect to be noticeable, recorded an acceleration field outside the superconductor that appears to be produced by gravitomagnetism. "This experiment is the gravitational analogue of Faraday's electromagnetic induction experiment in 1831.
It demonstrates that a superconductive gyroscope is capable of generating a powerful gravitomagnetic field, and is therefore the gravitational counterpart of the magnetic coil. Depending on further confirmation, this effect could form the basis for a new technological domain, which would have numerous applications in space and other high-tech sectors" says de Matos. Although just 100 millionths of the acceleration due to the Earth's gravitational field, the measured field is a surprising one hundred million trillion times larger than Einstein's General Relativity predicts. Initially, the researchers were reluctant to believe their own results.
"We ran more than 250 experiments, improved the facility over 3 years and discussed the validity of the results for 8 months before making this announcement. Now we are confident about the measurement," says Tajmar, who performed the experiments and hopes that other physicists will conduct their own versions of the experiment in order to verify the findings and rule out a facility induced effect. In parallel to the experimental evaluation of their conjecture, Tajmar and de Matos also looked for a more refined theoretical model of the Gravitomagnetic London Moment. They took their inspiration from superconductivity. The electromagnetic properties of superconductors are explained in quantum theory by assuming that force-carrying particles, known as photons, gain mass. By allowing force-carrying gravitational particles, known as the gravitons, to become heavier, they found that the unexpectedly large gravitomagnetic force could be modelled.
"If confirmed, this would be a major breakthrough," says Tajmar, "it opens up a new means of investigating general relativity and it consequences in the quantum world."
Source: European Space Agency
http://physorg.com/news12054.html
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Once, men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.
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Seuss
Error: divide byzero


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Re: Towards a new test of general relativity? [Re: trendal]
#5434943 - 03/23/06 03:27 PM (17 years, 10 months ago) |
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wow!
-------------------- Just another spore in the wind.
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trendal
J♠


Registered: 04/17/01
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Re: Towards a new test of general relativity? [Re: Seuss]
#5434948 - 03/23/06 03:29 PM (17 years, 10 months ago) |
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Yeah, I'm still kind of stunned after reading that 
If it's true...wow.
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Once, men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.
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RuNE
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Re: Towards a new test of general relativity? [Re: Seuss]
#5435945 - 03/23/06 08:56 PM (17 years, 10 months ago) |
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Any ideas on applications from these results?
Can we have our anti-gravity cars yet or what.  Seriously tho, can you guys translate that into something meaningfull for the rest of us?
-------------------- ~Happy sailing~
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Seuss
Error: divide byzero


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Re: Towards a new test of general relativity? [Re: RuNE]
#5437159 - 03/24/06 04:34 AM (17 years, 10 months ago) |
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> If it's true...
Well, it sounds true from the sense that the researches are not intentionally releasing false research... unlike the cold fusion flop of the late 80's, these researchers are being very careful with their claims...
Quote:
"We ran more than 250 experiments, improved the facility over 3 years and discussed the validity of the results for 8 months before making this announcement. Now we are confident about the measurement," says Tajmar, who performed the experiments and hopes that other physicists will conduct their own versions of the experiment in order to verify the findings and rule out a facility induced effect.
To me, that has the ring of good science...
> Any ideas on applications from these results?
Basically, it brings to gravity what Maxwell brought to EMF... an understanding of how things work... if you really get down to it, almost every piece of technology that we take for granted is possible because of what Maxwell defined. The implications of this, if validated to be correct, could be staggering...
-------------------- Just another spore in the wind.
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ChuangTzu
starvingphysicist



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Re: Towards a new test of general relativity? [Re: trendal]
#5437175 - 03/24/06 04:50 AM (17 years, 10 months ago) |
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Sweet.
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HagbardCeline
Student-Teacher-Student-Teacher


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Re: Towards a new test of general relativity? [Re: trendal]
#5440536 - 03/25/06 09:58 AM (17 years, 10 months ago) |
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This would seem to me to back Podkletnov's claim. Maybe he wasn't so crazy after all. Though why then were others unable to reproduce this until now?
Is a superconductors structure aligned in such a way that all of the poles are the same way? In effect becoming similar (though I know it isn't the same thing) to a Bose-Einstein condensate?
I was really interested (still am, though I don't have the time to devote to it as I would like anymore) in gravity and anti-gravity for as long as I can remember. My 4th grade science project on magnets, electricity, and gravity won Best of Show (with the help of my father of course). I've read nearly everything I can find about the subject and it has always seemed logical that spin induced in a body will produce these effects. Be it the slow spin of a very large body (IE. Earth) or the very fast spin of a small body. If someone were able to create a Bose-Einstein condensate that was somehow stable enough to be spun at extremely high speed I think you would see this effect on a much larger scale.
What else is there that has the ability to have it's structure aligned in this way, where all or almost all of the particles are in the same direction?
-------------------- I keep it real because I think it is important that a highly esteemed individual such as myself keep it real lest they experience the dreaded spontaneous non-existance of no longer keeping it real. - Hagbard Celine
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ChuangTzu
starvingphysicist



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Re: Towards a new test of general relativity? [Re: HagbardCeline]
#5442947 - 03/26/06 01:20 AM (17 years, 10 months ago) |
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Quote:
Is a superconductors structure aligned in such a way that all of the poles are the same way? In effect becoming similar (though I know it isn't the same thing) to a Bose-Einstein condensate?
Which poles?
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HagbardCeline
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Re: Towards a new test of general relativity? [Re: ChuangTzu]
#5444054 - 03/26/06 01:38 PM (17 years, 10 months ago) |
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Basically I guess the entire atom. Or at least most of them.
-------------------- I keep it real because I think it is important that a highly esteemed individual such as myself keep it real lest they experience the dreaded spontaneous non-existance of no longer keeping it real. - Hagbard Celine
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ChuangTzu
starvingphysicist



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Re: Towards a new test of general relativity? [Re: HagbardCeline]
#5444096 - 03/26/06 01:53 PM (17 years, 10 months ago) |
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In superconductors, atoms aren't oriented and electrons are only correlated in pairs....
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HagbardCeline
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Re: Towards a new test of general relativity? [Re: ChuangTzu]
#5444111 - 03/26/06 02:00 PM (17 years, 10 months ago) |
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Do you know of other materials that have their atoms oriented in such a way? Types of crystals perhaps?
-------------------- I keep it real because I think it is important that a highly esteemed individual such as myself keep it real lest they experience the dreaded spontaneous non-existance of no longer keeping it real. - Hagbard Celine
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chodamunky
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Re: Towards a new test of general relativity? [Re: trendal]
#5451944 - 03/28/06 04:35 PM (17 years, 10 months ago) |
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that's pretty wacky. So in theory if I throw a baseball fast enough, I would be creating a gravitational field???
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ChuangTzu
starvingphysicist



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Re: Towards a new test of general relativity? [Re: chodamunky]
#5451949 - 03/28/06 04:36 PM (17 years, 10 months ago) |
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A baseball is always "making a gravitational field".
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Madtowntripper
Sun-Beams out of Cucumbers


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Re: Towards a new test of general relativity? [Re: ChuangTzu]
#5452085 - 03/28/06 05:07 PM (17 years, 10 months ago) |
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Quote:
Although just 100 millionths of the acceleration due to the Earth's gravitational field, the measured field is a surprising one hundred million trillion times larger than Einstein's General Relativity predicts. Initially, the researchers were reluctant to believe their own results.
-------------------- After one comes, through contact with it's administrators, no longer to cherish greatly the law as a remedy in abuses, then the bottle becomes a sovereign means of direct action. If you cannot throw it at least you can always drink out of it. - Ernest Hemingway If it is life that you feel you are missing I can tell you where to find it. In the law courts, in business, in government. There is nothing occurring in the streets. Nothing but a dumbshow composed of the helpless and the impotent. -Cormac MacCarthy He who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God. - Aeschylus
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Madtowntripper
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Re: Towards a new test of general relativity? [Re: Madtowntripper]
#5490640 - 04/07/06 05:06 PM (17 years, 9 months ago) |
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Anyone have any new info on this?
Is this experiment being replicated elsewhere? any other words from the publishers? Does the scientific community in general find this plausible?
-------------------- After one comes, through contact with it's administrators, no longer to cherish greatly the law as a remedy in abuses, then the bottle becomes a sovereign means of direct action. If you cannot throw it at least you can always drink out of it. - Ernest Hemingway If it is life that you feel you are missing I can tell you where to find it. In the law courts, in business, in government. There is nothing occurring in the streets. Nothing but a dumbshow composed of the helpless and the impotent. -Cormac MacCarthy He who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God. - Aeschylus
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