There's one thing I know. The force of gravity is directly proportional to the amount of alcohol you've consumed. Just try getting up off the floor after you've had a few too many.
I don't need no steenkin' program to tell me that...
By the speed of gravity they mean how fast the effects of gravity propigate.
If I have a large mass at some distance you can measure it gravitational field. If I intantaiously destroy the mass how long will it take you to measure the change in gravity?
Instead of nitpicking other posts I'll just edcentric's.
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LeonardoWake up and smell the glaciersEagle River, AlaskaIcrontian
edited March 2005
You can't destroy mass. You can only convert it. Never heard of the law of "conservation of mass"?
When I said I think gravity is instantaneous I meant that we immediately feel the effect of gravity. I think that if the sun wasn't there and suddenly appeared, it would not take 7 minutes for us to feel the effect of this, like it would for us to see the light coming towards us. It would have an instantaneous effect on us.
All due to these little things called gravitons. I remember from college physics that every body in space exerts a gravitational pull on every other body in the universe.
It's just that gravity is a VERY weak force and at any kind of real distance it doesn't have any noticable affect on other objects.
Oh, and gravity is not acceleration, it is a force I think. It and gravitons, should they prove to exist, are all part of the Grand Unified Theory. So if they don't exist it's a massive blow to science.
Gravity is a mutual attraction between masses. From the equation of gravity, acceleration due to gravity is equal to the universal gravitational constant multiplied by the mass of the object divided by the square of the distance from the center of the object. The force due to gravity is a mutual attractive force between two or more masses and is simply equal to the mass of one object multiplied by the gravitational attraction of the other (F = m*g). Note that this is simply Newton's Second Law of Motion restated.
Gravity does not depend on density, though you can experience much higher gravitational pulls from high density objects since you can get closer to their center (from the equation, halve distance and force and acceleration quadruple). Also, high density objects (eg black holes and neutron stars) tend to have higher mass than the things you'll find around here. Gravity only depends on mass and distance.
The argument here is how fast gravity propagates from a mass. On the one hand, you have the people that believe that gravity propagates instantaneously throughout the universe, eg even though I see the light from distant galaxies, the gravity I feel due to them is in a different direction since they have moved in the billion years or so it took that light to get here. On the other hand are the people that believe gravity propagates at the speed of light, meaning even though the stars in the heavens have moved since the light I'm seeing from them has arrived, the gravity I feel towards them is in the same direction as their light.
There was an experiment a couple years ago that attempted to measure the speed of gravity and found it to be the same as the speed of light within the experimental error (+/-20%). However, many physicists object to the experiment, stating that it 1) didn't measure the speed of gravity at all but rather the speed of light, and 2) even if it did measure the speed of gravity, the conditions for the experiment were poor and the results bunk. You can read more about the argument here and a rebuttal here. For a less technical rebuttal, go here
In any case, it seems like the purpose of this project is to settle the question. I might divert the Pentium 233MMX from FAH, but that'd be it.
My name is drasnor and I am an undergraduate Aerospace Engineering major
OK, I meant convert mass, not destroy it. But changing a mass all into energy instantaniously would look like I destroyed it. Remember, E=mc^2
At its roots this is a Unified Theroy question, how does gravity really fit in with the other forces. Its cause and propigation are keys to understanding this.
Comments
I don't need no steenkin' program to tell me that...
Instead of nitpicking other posts I'll just
maybe you can't...
When I said I think gravity is instantaneous I meant that we immediately feel the effect of gravity. I think that if the sun wasn't there and suddenly appeared, it would not take 7 minutes for us to feel the effect of this, like it would for us to see the light coming towards us. It would have an instantaneous effect on us.
All due to these little things called gravitons. I remember from college physics that every body in space exerts a gravitational pull on every other body in the universe.
It's just that gravity is a VERY weak force and at any kind of real distance it doesn't have any noticable affect on other objects.
Oh, and gravity is not acceleration, it is a force I think. It and gravitons, should they prove to exist, are all part of the Grand Unified Theory. So if they don't exist it's a massive blow to science.
~Cyrix
Gravity does not depend on density, though you can experience much higher gravitational pulls from high density objects since you can get closer to their center (from the equation, halve distance and force and acceleration quadruple). Also, high density objects (eg black holes and neutron stars) tend to have higher mass than the things you'll find around here. Gravity only depends on mass and distance.
The argument here is how fast gravity propagates from a mass. On the one hand, you have the people that believe that gravity propagates instantaneously throughout the universe, eg even though I see the light from distant galaxies, the gravity I feel due to them is in a different direction since they have moved in the billion years or so it took that light to get here. On the other hand are the people that believe gravity propagates at the speed of light, meaning even though the stars in the heavens have moved since the light I'm seeing from them has arrived, the gravity I feel towards them is in the same direction as their light.
There was an experiment a couple years ago that attempted to measure the speed of gravity and found it to be the same as the speed of light within the experimental error (+/-20%). However, many physicists object to the experiment, stating that it 1) didn't measure the speed of gravity at all but rather the speed of light, and 2) even if it did measure the speed of gravity, the conditions for the experiment were poor and the results bunk. You can read more about the argument here and a rebuttal here. For a less technical rebuttal, go here
In any case, it seems like the purpose of this project is to settle the question. I might divert the Pentium 233MMX from FAH, but that'd be it.
My name is drasnor and I am an undergraduate Aerospace Engineering major
EDIT:\\ Added link to rebuttal in layman's terms.
At its roots this is a Unified Theroy question, how does gravity really fit in with the other forces. Its cause and propigation are keys to understanding this.