Earth warps space time.

[musicsmaker]

This to me is just awesome.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6290610/

By Robert Roy Britt
Senior science writer

Updated: 2:18 p.m. ET Oct. 20, 2004Earth's spin warps space around the planet, according to a new study that confirms a key prediction of Einstein's general theory of relativity.

After 11 years of watching the movements of two Earth-orbiting satellites, researchers found each is dragged by about 6 feet (2 meters) every year because the very fabric of space is twisted by our whirling world.

The results, announced Wednesday, are much more precise than preliminary findings published by the same group in the late 1990s.

Frame dragging
The effect is called frame dragging. It is a modification to the simpler aspects of gravity set out by Newton. Working from Einstein's relativity theory, Austrian physicists Joseph Lense and Hans Thirring predicted frame dragging in 1918. (It is also known as the Lense-Thirring effect.)

Here's how it works:

Any object with mass warps the space-time around it, in much the same way as a heavy object deforms a stretched elastic sheet, explained study leader Ignazio Ciufolini of the UniversitÃ* di Lecce in Italy.

If the object spins, another distortion is introduced, "in the same way as the elastic sheet would be twisted by a spinning heavy wheel on it."

If the space around Earth is being frame-dragged, then satellites ought to be caught up in the deformation, scientists reasoned. Imagine how a second object on the elastic sheet would be moved by the scrunching motion created as the sheet is deformed.

Ciufolini's team analyzed millions of laser signals bounced off two satellites, called LAGEOS and LAGEOS 2. Both are highly reflective spheres not designed to do any work of their own. They look like 2-foot-diameter (60-centimeter) golf balls and contain no batteries or electronics.

The researchers say their result is 99 percent of the predicted drag, with an error of up to 10 percent. The details are reported in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature.

The analysis is "the first reasonably accurate measurement of frame-dragging," said physicist Neil Ashby of the University of Colorado in Boulder.

"Precise measurement of these effects predicted by relativistic gravity theories is crucial, as they have important implications for our view of the cosmos," Ashby writes in an analysis of the study for the journal.

Black hole applications
Specifically, the new results can be applied to black hole theory. In fact, it is with black holes — typically much more massive than Earth — that some of the first signs of frame dragging were spotted.

In observations of activity around black hole in 1997, researchers noted that gas spiraling into the black hole wobbled, or precessed, like a top. The precession was much greater than what could be described by basic mechanics of the setup.

And as early as 1996, Ciufolini's team saw signs of frame dragging on the Earth-orbiting satellites in their study, but the initial results had a high degree of error owing to the lack of knowledge about Earth's gravity field, which is not symmetric. A gravity map generated by NASA's new GRACE satellite made the latest analysis possible, he said.

Meanwhile, other studies have shown that black holes indeed spin, and that frame dragging plays an important role in spewing tremendous jets of material out of the environments around black holes. The whole setup can be likened to a giant gyroscope, Ciufolini told Space.com. A jet can point in one direction for millions of years, other observations show.

"In other words," Ciufolini said, "an astrophysical gun was shooting for millions of years without changing direction: a fantastic gyroscope indeed."

[lebowski]

Indeed...

[Reef Junkie]

I knew it!

[musicsmaker]

I think high speed space travel is going to happen when they can isolate what space actually is, and manipulate it.

[dendronepthya]

Very cool article.

[musicsmaker]

Did any of you click to the link? There are some graphics and a movie feature that aren't in the copy and paste above.

[Reef Junkie]

I did last night, but nothing came up.

[musicsmaker]

Try it again, I just got it to work.

[O'Coralman]

Originally posted by musicsmaker
I think high speed space travel is going to happen when they can isolate what space actually is, and manipulate it.

Good Stuff....... that will also depend on the energy used to propel. At this time if man could tie-in all the known energy sources and could get them to work together, all at once.......we still could not propel a speck of dust to anywhere near light speed. A barrier as well is the fact that to excelerate to light speed.....one would have to take about 20 years to build up speed. Any faster acceleration will reduce the life, in side the speeding object to mush. This is the basis for the term "enertial damper".....in the Star Trek films. Physics are a trip(pun intended) Here is a thought...if transportation(i,e. beam me up Scotty) is based on matter transfer......what happens to the soul during the process. Never mind to break down the human to data....would require more space that all the books ever written.........Steve

[Orchids]

Space travel is possible if space can be warped.

Take a piece of paper and put a dot in the top right hand corner and one in the bottom right hand corner. What is the shortest distance between these points. A straight line from point A to point B, nope. If you fold the paper so the two dots are touching then you have just demonstrated how to bend space. This is a simplified explanation but is the same concept. It is a powerful idea to think about. Do these bends or worm holes in the fabric of space exist, who knows. If they do, anything is possible.

[O'Coralman]

....this will given my previous post ,be the most practical way to travel through space. While some may disagree....time is how God keeps things apart that do not belong in contact. The laws of Physics seem to support this and your bending space scenerio will most likely be the thing in the future, which Einstien may have hinted at in his work........Time Hawking picks this up where Al left it.......Einstien sad "God does'nt roll dice...Hawking said "yes he does....he just does'nt have to show us where they land... Steve "the shortest distance between two points...is never a straight line".....Murphy

[der_wille_zur_macht]

I don't think we'll exist long enough to take advantage of travel in that sense. If we do discover how to accomplish that, we've basically discovered how to travel through time as well.

And think of this - if, at some point, humanity had time travel machines, don't you think we would know about it? I mean, don't you think someone (either intentionally or accidentally) would have traveled back and made themselves quite obvious to some point in our history?

[O'Coralman]

Originally posted by der_wille_zur_macht
I don't think we'll exist long enough to take advantage of travel in that sense. If we do discover how to accomplish that, we've basically discovered how to travel through time as well.

And think of this - if, at some point, humanity had time travel machines, don't you think we would know about it? I mean, don't you think someone (either intentionally or accidentally) would have traveled back and made themselves quite obvious to some point in our history?

.....................................if God went along with that intrution into the big plan.....willie you do make an interesting point......certainlly I would have to go along with the "I don't think we'll last that long"....mankind does make a weak case, by his present day actions....that he will last long enough to benefit from this type of travel..........Steve

[nepuck]

The bending paper idea IE:Orchids reply, shouldn't require time travel; Just "space skipping"? My brain is now being frame dragged.

[PrivateJoker64]

Another problem - as speed approaches C, mass approaches infinity.

[musicsmaker]

Originally posted by PrivateJoker64
Another problem - as speed approaches C, mass approaches infinity.

I've heard that one before, but never the logic behind it. Anyone got a link to that? I don't think I buy it.

[O'Coralman]

Originally posted by musicsmaker
I've heard that one before, but never the logic behind it. Anyone got a link to that? I don't think I buy it.

I belive there is some truth if not most, to this statement....give me till Fri...a.m.......I have an office buddy whoose alley of knowldge may help with this. I do know that as an object approaches the speed of light...theory suggests that mass does distort.....i'll get back on this.......steve

[PrivateJoker64]

Albert Einstein did the math.
follow this link
http://www.bartleby.com/173/15.html
Does anyone else remember this from calculus class?
Do some research on Einstein and relativity. It all sounds like science fiction, BUT... it's all sound mathematics if you can follow it.
There are hundreds of websites aimed at explaining Einstein's equations, but all of them that I have seen assume that you have the proper background in physics and calculus to follow them. Some things just can't be popularized for the masses.
Very interesting stuff though.

[mellen]

As to time travel, I've wondered the same thing, but also, as to the SETI program...I don't think it's even possible that we could be alone in the cosmos; the numbers, stats and probabilities preclude that, but perhaps it must be the vastness of time that leaves us in apparent isolation. The time it takes for a coherent message to travel. Or, really, putting it in another context, perhaps technology and sentience don't necessarily go hand in hand for that long or that often, and we are simply the only ones at this point in time and space (really, just a 75 year window-crack, which is a 75 lightyear radius of announcing our presence as it stands now). Others have come before, others are extant "now", others will come after. Will we ever meet face to face? Probably not in the flesh - it's just too impractical. But I think information could be exchanged if we find a way to exploit space/time warps with narrow cast information beaming, not launching vessels.

[nepuck]

Originally posted by PrivateJoker64
Another problem - as speed approaches C, mass approaches infinity.

If this is the case then light particles (which have mass) would be infinately massive?

[musicsmaker]

A barrier as well is the fact that to excelerate to light speed.....one would have to take about 20 years to build up speed. Any faster acceleration will reduce the life, in side the speeding object to mush.

This to me is the most interesting point in this thread so far. I have never thought of that before.

[Reef Junkie]

As complicated as this thread is(my little brain can't keep up) I'm really enjoying it and I appreciate the way you folks translate it into laymans terms.
I am always fascinated with einsteins work and now with all this String Theory going around, it's only a matter of time when I can just think of that warm Pecan Pie with vanilla ice cream and it'll materialize here at my desk...

[PrivateJoker64]

Originally posted by nepuck
If this is the case then light particles (which have mass) would be infinately massive?

Actually, no one has determined whether light is a wave or particle. It has SOME of the attributes of each, but NOT ALL of the attributes of either. Many researchers now consider light to be neither a wave nor a particle, but a "wavicle" (don't laugh, this is an actual term.)
See link below.
http://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/primer/l...cleorwave.html
If light particles have "mass" then a laser beam would have inertia. I have never heard / read about the "inertia" of a laser beam.
Not saying it doesn't, just that I've never heard it does.
You'll never here me claim to know everything.

[PrivateJoker64]

BTW, thanks to everyone for an intelligent thread that stretches the mind. It's a relief to have an intelligent "conversation" after dealing with idiots at work all day!

[O'Coralman]

....appear to be no intelligent life....at times does'nt there? So I agree with Joker. Shall we continue with a new topic....in a new thread and if so tag.....someone out here is it How about. Why do bummble bees fly when physics say...uh uh or lets expand on the most excellant point that mellen made. There is some room for brain warping there Steve