Testing general relativity in the laboratory?
Conundrum, Tue Mar 28 2006, 10:48AM
As far as I can tell this is genuine, rotating superconductors have been postulated to generate such a field since the early 1970's but it has taken until now to measure the effect reliably enough to account for all possible sources of experimental error.
-A
Re: Testing general relativity in the laboratory?
Dr. Shark, Tue Mar 28 2006, 02:56PM
I am very reluctant to belive any claims to have proven the General Theory of Relativity wrong, unless the experiments have been repeated independently. If the results were true I would also expect prestigeous journals like Science to feature articles about it. It could be interesting, but most likely it is BS.
BTW, for those who care to check, the most relvant publication seems to be the one here.
Dr. Shark, Tue Mar 28 2006, 02:56PM
I am very reluctant to belive any claims to have proven the General Theory of Relativity wrong, unless the experiments have been repeated independently. If the results were true I would also expect prestigeous journals like Science to feature articles about it. It could be interesting, but most likely it is BS.
BTW, for those who care to check, the most relvant publication seems to be the one here.
Re: Testing general relativity in the laboratory?
Ben, Tue Mar 28 2006, 06:16PM
They've already acheived a breakthough. A superconducting material that can withstand the stress at 6500 rpm.....
Ben, Tue Mar 28 2006, 06:16PM
They've already acheived a breakthough. A superconducting material that can withstand the stress at 6500 rpm.....
Re: Testing general relativity in the laboratory?
Desmogod, Wed Mar 29 2006, 12:56AM
I am also very reluctant to believe anything that disproves General relativity.
But don't forget, relativity is still a theory, and by defenition a theory is an approximation.
Newton's theories made an outstanding difference to our lives until Einstein postulated special, and then later general relativity. But both of these theories are just more accurate "approximations" of the world we see around us.
In time, general relativity will fall by the wayside as an even more accurate view of the universe becomes apparent.
String theory maybe.
But I would say that it's probably B.S.
Desmogod, Wed Mar 29 2006, 12:56AM
I am also very reluctant to believe anything that disproves General relativity.
But don't forget, relativity is still a theory, and by defenition a theory is an approximation.
Newton's theories made an outstanding difference to our lives until Einstein postulated special, and then later general relativity. But both of these theories are just more accurate "approximations" of the world we see around us.
In time, general relativity will fall by the wayside as an even more accurate view of the universe becomes apparent.
String theory maybe.
But I would say that it's probably B.S.
Re: Testing general relativity in the laboratory?
Simon, Wed Mar 29 2006, 02:23AM
If it really disproved it, it wouldn't matter what you believed.
Theory=approximation by definition? Not at all.
Simon, Wed Mar 29 2006, 02:23AM
wrote ...
I am also very reluctant to believe anything that disproves General relativity.
But don't forget, relativity is still a theory, and by defenition a theory is an approximation.
Some semantics:I am also very reluctant to believe anything that disproves General relativity.
But don't forget, relativity is still a theory, and by defenition a theory is an approximation.
If it really disproved it, it wouldn't matter what you believed.
Theory=approximation by definition? Not at all.
Re: Testing general relativity in the laboratory?
WaveRider, Wed Mar 29 2006, 10:33AM
From my reading of the articles,I do not believe that GR has been "disproved" any more than Newtonian Mechanics was "disproved" by the development of quantum mechanics or Einstein's Relativity. Einstein himself knew that GR was incomplete. We will no doubt in time find the incomplete bits of the puzzle. Whether or not this will involve a reformulation of physics as radical as that of the early 20th century is still up in the air....
WaveRider, Wed Mar 29 2006, 10:33AM
From my reading of the articles,I do not believe that GR has been "disproved" any more than Newtonian Mechanics was "disproved" by the development of quantum mechanics or Einstein's Relativity. Einstein himself knew that GR was incomplete. We will no doubt in time find the incomplete bits of the puzzle. Whether or not this will involve a reformulation of physics as radical as that of the early 20th century is still up in the air....
Re: Testing general relativity in the laboratory?
Desmogod, Wed Mar 29 2006, 11:05AM
Waverider, thank you, my point exactly.
Every new theory we see is just a better and more refined approximation of what we see around us in the world around us and what we see in experiments.
GR can NOT be 100% correct because we cannot marry it successfully to Quantum Mechanics. And we cannot come up with a Quantum theory of gravity either. GR breaks down when we get to such things as singularities and the big bang (Which is also under scrutiny)
We are in a very new age of physics at the moment, for the first time in history, our theories are outstripping our experimentational skills.
Will we ever know the mind of god?
Desmogod, Wed Mar 29 2006, 11:05AM
Waverider, thank you, my point exactly.
Every new theory we see is just a better and more refined approximation of what we see around us in the world around us and what we see in experiments.
GR can NOT be 100% correct because we cannot marry it successfully to Quantum Mechanics. And we cannot come up with a Quantum theory of gravity either. GR breaks down when we get to such things as singularities and the big bang (Which is also under scrutiny)
We are in a very new age of physics at the moment, for the first time in history, our theories are outstripping our experimentational skills.
Will we ever know the mind of god?
Re: Testing general relativity in the laboratory?
Simon, Wed Mar 29 2006, 11:14PM
As to saying that theory now exceeds experiment, theory and experiment have always been leap-frogging each other. Remember, when general relativity was first formulated no one could test all of its predictions. That eclipse thing that is often hailed as the first proof of GR was actually nothing but hype.
Simon, Wed Mar 29 2006, 11:14PM
Dr Desmo wrote ...
Will we ever know the mind of god?
Some of us are working on it. Will we ever know the mind of god?
As to saying that theory now exceeds experiment, theory and experiment have always been leap-frogging each other. Remember, when general relativity was first formulated no one could test all of its predictions. That eclipse thing that is often hailed as the first proof of GR was actually nothing but hype.
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