General Theory of Relativity proven!

The $760 million NASA spacecraft "gravityprobe b" has confirmed Einstein's theory of general relativity, which describes how gravity causes masses to warp space-time around them.

Gravity Probe B achieved measurements that agreed with theoretical predictions for two effects of general relativity.

Einstein was brilliant, I used to love reading about his thought experiments so glad he´s been proven right again.

more info in the links below, there´s loads if you can be bothered to Google it.

Link 1

Link 2 Fox

For those who may have no interest in the subject and havn´t got a clue what this is about, there are some excellent videos explaining it on youtube.

YouTube video

Not being a fan of the flat trampoline vision of gravity, this vid attemps to show a more accurate view of how it works.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DbhuRcmSkMg

Here´s the NASA press conference, its a long vid with odd scientific folk talking weird stuff. Amazing stuff imo.🙂

YouTube video

Wow that's amazing!

Now, if we could just figure out quantum gravity...

one thing at a time🙂 maybe they should try and work out what space time actually is. After all if something is being bent then that something can´t just be a vacuum. I guess that is where dark matter will come into it.

Originally posted by Bicnarok
one thing at a time🙂 maybe they should try and work out what space time actually is. After all if something is being bent then that something can´t just be a vacuum. I guess that is where dark matter will come into it.

and Dark Energy.... I belive we have long strings of universes/dimensions and we are in the surface of one sandwiched between others, that's just me though.

That's pretty neat actually, thanks for this Bic.

Originally posted by Liberator
That's pretty neat actually, thanks for this Bic.

Agreed

so, is this the official death of the graviton? or could it still play some role in gravity?

Originally posted by inimalist
so, is this the official death of the graviton? or could it still play some role in gravity?

Of course it isn't.....and of course it might.

Why would it be the death of the graviton?

if gravity acts through the warping of spacetime, and not through the transfer of energy through a sub atomic particle, this would be the end of the graviton.

afaik, they are mutually exclusive theories...

Originally posted by inimalist
if gravity acts through the warping of spacetime, and not through the transfer of energy through a sub atomic particle, this would be the end of the graviton.

afaik, they are mutually exclusive theories...

Ummm not exactly...Gravitons are postulated because of the great success of quantum field theory (in particular, the Standard Model) at modeling the behavior of all other known forces of nature as being mediated by elementary particles: electromagnetism by the photon, the strong interaction by the gluons, and the weak interaction by the W and Z bosons. The hypothesis is that the gravitational interaction is likewise mediated by a – yet undiscovered – elementary particle, dubbed the graviton. In the classical limit, the theory would reduce to general relativity and conform to Newton's law of gravitation in the weak-field limit.[6][7][8]

Unlike the force carriers of the other forces, gravitation plays a special role in general relativity in defining the spacetime in which events take place. Because it does not depend on a particular space-time background, general relativity is said to be background independent. In contrast, the Standard Model is not background independent.[13] A theory of quantum gravity is needed in order to reconcile these differences.[14] Whether this theory should be background independent or not is an open question. The answer to this question will determine if gravitation plays a special role in the universe.[15]

I could have wiki'd it myself, and that hardly answers my question

if you could, how would the two work together?

Originally posted by inimalist
I could have wiki'd it myself, and that hardly answers my question

if you could, how would the two work together?

A Quantum or string explanation of gravity might reconcile the two.

For instance the background radiation supports both a big bang and a string creation collision.

Evidence one way does not have to exclude another theory. It may even be both are going on and the particles are an expression of warped spacetime.

...

so this could very well be the end of the graviton?

EDIT: string theory isn't even scientific...

Originally posted by inimalist
...

so this could very well be the end of the graviton?

EDIT: string theory isn't even scientific...

Hmm, actually it is the theory of membrane space and 11 dimensions is as scientific as many other things.

Originally posted by Daemon Seed
Hmm, actually it is the theory of membrane space and 11 dimensions is as scientific as many other things.

not unless it predicts experimental results, which as of 2008 it had not...

unless there has been some fundamental change in the theory, it isn't science...

Originally posted by inimalist
not unless it predicts experimental results, which as of 2008 it had not...

unless there has been some fundamental change in the theory, it isn't science...

In that sense no it doesn't, however most new ways of looking at things require a while for evidence to be gathered, sometimes we simply don't have the tech to gather that evidence at the time of the theory.