Speed of gravity

[Bobby]

Okay, most of this discussion is way beyond me.

 

So questions.

 

1. Where is the proof that gravity is a force instead of a mass induceed distortion of space?

 

2. What kind of experiment isolates the measure of gravity so that it is not confused with electro-magnetism?(I do not mean the dropping of objects. I mean such experiments as trying to measure the refraction of light in a gravitational field to set a measure for time retardation of the apparent refraction index.)

 

3. If gravity does not have a bounded velocity, then how is the principle of conservation of information not violated.(Hypermasses with escape velocities greater than c still put out information in the form of gravitational effects?)

 

4. If graviton interchange occurs between masses, (this makes sense to me as every other binding force has some kind of boson associated with it), has anyone devised an experiment for the observation of wave phenomena that should accompany such a boson?

 

5. Is the graviton asymmetric?

 

6. Can it be modulated?

 

Damocles

 

1. Where is the proof that gravity is a force instead of a mass induceed distortion of space?

 

( a ) By definition a Force Accelerates a Mass. If you view something falling in a gravitational field, then this would seem to satisy the definition of a force. If you are the something that is falling, there is no force.

 

( b ) Many authors and speakers seem to see space and time as something physical. Others see space as extension or separation and time as duration. It appears to me that looking at space as extension and time as duration would look at mass as something like this. "When I measure the effects of Mass using clocks and rulers, here are the results I get. I do not know what this "REALLY" means."

 

 

 

2. What kind of experiment isolates the measure of gravity so that it is not confused with electro-magnetism?(I do not mean the dropping of objects. I mean such experiments as trying to measure the refraction of light in a gravitational field to set a measure for time retardation of the apparent refraction index.)

 

 

It seems to me that this might also be a problem of definition. We define electromagnetic force to be such and such and define gravity to be a different force. This assumption that EM and gravity are separate forces may or may not be valid.

 

3. If gravity does not have a bounded velocity, then how is the principle of conservation of information not violated.(Hypermasses with escape velocities greater than c still put out information in the form of gravitational effects?)

 

You appear to be answering a post that gives gravity a speed greater than light. My understanding is that light and gravity propagate at the same speed.

 

 

4. If graviton interchange occurs between masses, (this makes sense to me as every other binding force has some kind of boson associated with it), has anyone devised an experiment for the observation of wave phenomena that should accompany such a boson?

5. Is the graviton asymmetric?

6. Can it be modulated?

 

 

I am new to these boards. A board on particles physics might have better answers than this one.

[Bobby]

Originally Posted by Aki

Can the speed of gravity ever slow down? Light travels at a different speed when it is in a different medium, how about gravity?

 

this is an excellent question! light is subject to refraction and is also distorted by gravity, so maybe there are some conditions that can distort and effect gravity...

 

When light passes through a physical medium, it is continually absorbed and emitted as it moves along. I would think that gravity does not work this way.

[damocles]

1. Where is the proof that gravity is a force instead of a mass induceed distortion of space?

 

( a ) By definition a Force Accelerates a Mass. If you view something falling in a gravitational field, then this would seem to satisy the definition of a force. If you are the something that is falling, there is no force.

 

( b ) Many authors and speakers seem to see space and time as something physical. Others see space as extension or separation and time as duration. It appears to me that looking at space as extension and time as duration would look at mass as something like this. "When I measure the effects of Mass using clocks and rulers, here are the results I get. I do not know what this "REALLY" means."

 

 

 

2. What kind of experiment isolates the measure of gravity so that it is not confused with electro-magnetism?(I do not mean the dropping of objects. I mean such experiments as trying to measure the refraction of light in a gravitational field to set a measure for time retardation of the apparent refraction index.)

 

 

It seems to me that this might also be a problem of definition. We define electromagnetic force to be such and such and define gravity to be a different force. This assumption that EM and gravity are separate forces may or may not be valid.

 

3. If gravity does not have a bounded velocity, then how is the principle of conservation of information not violated.(Hypermasses with escape velocities greater than c still put out information in the form of gravitational effects?)

 

You appear to be answering a post that gives gravity a speed greater than light. My understanding is that light and gravity propagate at the same speed.

 

 

4. If graviton interchange occurs between masses, (this makes sense to me as every other binding force has some kind of boson associated with it), has anyone devised an experiment for the observation of wave phenomena that should accompany such a boson?

5. Is the graviton asymmetric?

6. Can it be modulated?

 

 

I am new to these boards. A board on particles physics might have better answers than this one.

Today 05:31 AM by Bobby

 

First, thank you for answering my questions. I appreciate it.

 

Second, I wonder if the confusion I have with the understanding of how gravity transmit information may lie in the fact that I don't understand what kind of information a graviton supplies? I understand the concept that mass is the one measurement that is directly proportional to the strength of a gravitational tractor force and in a crude sense I suppose I would expect that;

 

a. around massive objects there should be a larger number of graviton interactions per given spatial volume, with other objects locked in mutual traction than there would be with less masive objects.

 

b. that gravity waves around more massive object pairs generated by the attraction will be far more pronounced than around less massive object pairs.

 

c. that the gravity waves depend on the attraction(graviton exchange) between a minimum of paired objects.

 

d. that if there is a velocity bound in the graviton exchange; that not only should the gravity waves, produced by the graviton exchange be detectable, but that their retardation(twisting and stretching, like the overtorquing of a bycycle wheel rim out of staic relation to its hub, stretces and twists the spokes) should be measurable in the detection process and that from the tau deformation of the wave, we should be able to get the following;

-speed of the wave.

-effect of spatial distortion caused by the wave passage.

-bearing and range of the wave origin(requires at least three wave detectors in a premeasured array to triangulate.)

 

e. and that we can match this against electromagnetic measurement data to see if we get a good match and check to ensure that we aren't measuring "ghost" phenomena.

 

As to whether gravity is akin to electro-magnetism; that it can combine with the other forces, as has been done with the experiments that produced Electro-weak coupling between the electro-magnetic and the weak nuclear forces and would presumably lead to the same coupling of the electro-weak with the strong nucleart force at higher order energy densities, and thence finally to gravity itself? I don't know.

 

I do know, that there is a laser interferometry experiment that should give answers to a lot of our questions soon. If the experiment detects gravity waves, it should give us a gauge measurement as to speed of passage soon thereafter(you would only need to set up two detectors a known distance apart) and THAT would be a unique-to-the-graviton supplied bit of information!

 

After that comes learning how to modulate the wave?

 

Damocles

[Bobby]

First, thank you for answering my questions. I appreciate it.

 

Second, I wonder if the confusion I have with the understanding of how gravity transmit information may lie in the fact that I don't understand what kind of information a graviton supplies? I understand the concept that mass is the one measurement that is directly proportional to the strength of a gravitational tractor force and in a crude sense I suppose I would expect that;

 

a. around massive objects there should be a larger number of graviton interactions per given spatial volume, with other objects locked in mutual traction than there would be with less masive objects.

 

b. that gravity waves around more massive object pairs generated by the attraction will be far more pronounced than around less massive object pairs.

 

c. that the gravity waves depend on the attraction(graviton exchange) between a minimum of paired objects.

 

d. that if there is a velocity bound in the graviton exchange; that not only should the gravity waves, produced by the graviton exchange be detectable, but that their retardation(twisting and stretching, like the overtorquing of a bycycle wheel rim out of staic relation to its hub, stretces and twists the spokes) should be measurable in the detection process and that from the tau deformation of the wave, we should be able to get the following;

-speed of the wave.

-effect of spatial distortion caused by the wave passage.

-bearing and range of the wave origin(requires at least three wave detectors in a premeasured array to triangulate.)

 

e. and that we can match this against electromagnetic measurement data to see if we get a good match and check to ensure that we aren't measuring "ghost" phenomena.

 

As to whether gravity is akin to electro-magnetism; that it can combine with the other forces, as has been done with the experiments that produced Electro-weak coupling between the electro-magnetic and the weak nuclear forces and would presumably lead to the same coupling of the electro-weak with the strong nucleart force at higher order energy densities, and thence finally to gravity itself? I don't know.

 

I do know, that there is a laser interferometry experiment that should give answers to a lot of our questions soon. If the experiment detects gravity waves, it should give us a gauge measurement as to speed of passage soon thereafter(you would only need to set up two detectors a known distance apart) and THAT would be a unique-to-the-graviton supplied bit of information!

 

After that comes learning how to modulate the wave?

 

Damocles

 

 

You're out of my field. Perhaps someone else can converse with you at your level.

Regards, BP

[Southtown]

If gravity travels at c, then the earth would travel a path perpendicular to the Sun's position as it was 8.3 minutes ago sending us gradually further and further into space.

 

http://www.ldolphin.org/vanFlandern/gravityspeed.html

[Jay-qu]

If gravity travels at c, then the earth would travel a path perpendicular to the Sun's position as it was 8.3 minutes ago sending us gradually further and further into space.

 

yeah thats what we were getting at, good link but im still struggling to believe that gravity goes faster then c...

[alxian]

what if gravity was instantaneous but depended on a polarity to determine its strength?

[Jay-qu]

polarity of what? as far as i can see strength is always the same but since its always additive the overall strength is determined by the amount of mass

[alxian]

the standard postive and negative charge for attraction and repulsion, mostly matter is almost uniformly polarized one way or the other. can't subatomic particles have some sort of similar polarity but one much stronger than electric charge but who's affect can only be noticed in macro systems like a person standing on planet?

 

if black holes suck local matter in, and shoot out radiation, can that radiant energy be turned back into matter somehow? or does it just fill the void between stars affecting the physical universe very little?

 

 

actually the more i think about it the more absurd it sounds

 

 

its like there is a basic imbalance in the very slight form of energy [of gravity] a polarity, like how the annihilation of twin protons, an anti proton and a proton, there is energy left over, and lots of it as well as normal matter. similarly gravity can be the expression of a similarly imbalanced system where the instantaneous speed of gravity is only noticeable when you have very large amounts of mass trying to bring equilibrium "to the force" of gravity.

 

*i'm honestly busting a gut here.

 

i mean most of the other elemental forces are very imperfect, as in the imbalances in those forces yeild huge amounts of energy compared to gravity, gravity thus can be thought of as a (can't decide between long or short wave, or if it can be expressed as a wave form at all, but i'll go with very long wave nearly flat) near perfect elemental force, it has a lot of power but in the physical universe the here and there [positive and negative] of gravity have very distinct states [nearly identical] such that the speed as measured by an observer* of gravity is almost always a constant, if not always, the energy shift seems uniformly but "slowly" although instantaneous, like its energy flow is direct without the use of a phantom graviton particle, that energy transmition being very smooth and predictable.

 

 

miserably confused now...

 

*what of the observer who is not being accelerated by gravity... how does time pass for him? if we escaped sols domain and took a measurement would we see that gravity is much faster from the outside looking in?

 

can anything even exists without gravity? the great unificator that allows this to associate with that slowly enough for interactions to take place, fast enough for them to be noticed? like a pair of tuning forks in vacuum vibrating in synchronized unison? hmmmm wait a minute... does that fork work trick work in vacuum?

 

 

Every object, substance, has a natural frequency at which it is "willing" to vibrate.

 

perhaps because everything is already vibrating and resonance between two objects is simply a shared frequency at which they hum, amplicfied so we can see it?

 

[/incoherent ramblings]

[questor]

as these galaxies speed away from us because of the expanding universe, that means that

interstellar spaces are expanding. that means an increase in space volume. if gravity is composed of gravitons, how can the density of gravity remain constant? or the density of dark matter?

[infamous]

as these galaxies speed away from us because of the expanding universe, that means that

interstellar spaces are expanding. that means an increase in space volume. if gravity is composed of gravitons, how can the density of gravity remain constant? or the density of dark matter?

Maybe gravity isn't composed of the theoritical graviton, there are also theories that suggest that gravity is merely an effect caused by the geometry of the space/time fabric.

[Bobby]

Can gravity ever slow down?

 

this is an excellent question! light is subject to refraction and is also distorted by gravity, so maybe there are some conditions that can distort and effect gravity...

 

Time is the rate at which gravity propagates. Gravity doesn't move in space and time, rather space and time are measurements of gravity.

[Bobby]

as these galaxies speed away from us because of the expanding universe, that means that

interstellar spaces are expanding. that means an increase in space volume. if gravity is composed of gravitons, how can the density of gravity remain constant? or the density of dark matter?

 

 

Galaxies do not move away from us because the universe is expanding, the universe is expanding because the galaxies are moving away from us.

 

Interstellar space isn't expanding, gravity is expanding.

 

Gravity does whatever gravity does. When we measure this using clocks and rules and using also some laws of arithemeric we have invented, then we conclude that space (distance) is expanding. This seemingly logical conclusion is faulty. Time and space are measurements just as a mile is a measurement. To say that space expands is the same as saying a mile expands.

 

Gravity is not thought to be composed of gravitons, gravitons are thought to be the carriers od the gravitional force.

 

The density of gravity does not remain constant.

 

It is difficult to say what happens to dark matter since no one seems to know exactly what dark matter is.

 

Regards BP

[Bobby]

If gravity travels at c, then the earth would travel a path perpendicular to the Sun's position as it was 8.3 minutes ago sending us gradually further and further into space.

 

http://www.ldolphin.org/vanFlandern/gravityspeed.html

 

 

I'm sorry, but vanFlandern hasn't the slightest idea what the hell he is trying to talk about. He is more interested in selling books than understanding science. Not only is his science faulty, but his math sucks.

[Bobby]

according to relativity gravity couldnt go any faster that light, but this does mean it goes at the speed of light... any way the real point i wanted to make is that if there is matter at the other end of the universe receding from us at a rate faster than c than becuase gravity cant go faster than c, the gravity from that matter will never reach us and hence never effect us and pull us in, so then how could the universe ever stop expanding?

 

Anything moving away from us at or greater than C can have no effect on us and, in a sense, doesn't exist. I can conceive of things moving faster than C relative to us, but it would effectively be another universe. In other words, I doubt that we could travel toward this distant universe and find that we are going 1/10 C then 4/10 C then 8/10 C then 12/10 C etc.

 

Sometimes scientists gets lucky. Einstein got lucky. Einstein seems to have had this thing about rideing along on a beam of light. He seems to have been a smart young felow, and when he started fooling around with three thoughts, ( 1 ) the speed of light is constant, ( 2 ) all motion is relative, ( 3 ) the laws of nature are the same everywhere. He put the three together and came up with the Special Theory of Relativity. So far, there was no luck involved, only good logic and good math. Then he began the idea of expanding the Special Theory of Relativity into the General Theory of Relativity.

 

The special (restricted) theory only handled uniform motion, meaning objects that were moving at a constant rate relative to each other (same speed). The general theory sought to expand this idea to all motion, meaning motion that was not constant such as accelerated motion. His initial attempts used the principals and results of the special theory to examine light as seen from moving clocks. Somewhere at about this time he noticed that there was no way of telling the difference between clocks that were accelerated from clocks that were in a gravitational field, thus a study of accelerated clocks was also a study of clocks in a gravitational field.

 

Much, if not all, of the principles of the General theory are based on the special theory which is based in part on the idea that the speed of light is constant. When developing the gravitational side of the general theory Einstein had to move away from the constancy of the speed of light to the idea that the speed of light is constant only in the absense of gravity. This should have turned a light bulb (as in the comics) on, but it didn't. He did come up with several ways in which gravity affected light such as T1 = T2 ( 1 + gh/C^2),

but he never got over the idea that the speed of light was constant, even thou it may have been affected by gravity.

 

There were clues all around him which suggests that even the most intelligent being can become trapped in their own preconceptions. It isn't the speed of light that is constant, instead the key is gravity. Gravity does whatever gravity does, and when we measure gravity with clocks and rulers we get whatever results we get. Gravity doesn't move (propagate) in space and time, time and space are simply measurements of what gravity does. In short, time and space are derived from gravity, not the other way around.

 

The speed of light is the speed with which light interacts with gravity. Einstein knew this (T1 = T2 ( 1 + gh/C^2) but didn't recognize it. Apparently by the time he got around to recognizing that gravity affects light, he was so set on the idea that light was the key that he didn't notice that he had put the carriage before the horse.

 

Space and time aren't THINGS, they are measurements, and they are measurements of gravity. The speed of light is not determined by the speed of an electromagnetic wave, the speed of light is determined by the speed with which these waves move through a gravitational field. Want proof? OK T1 = T2 ( 1 + gh/C^2) is your proof.

[Bobby]

the standard postive and negative charge for attraction and repulsion, mostly matter is almost uniformly polarized one way or the other. can't subatomic particles have some sort of similar polarity but one much stronger than electric charge but who's affect can only be noticed in macro systems like a person standing on planet?

 

 

IMO nothing ever completely disappears. It can be vancelled out such as a crest and trough of water cancel each other, but the waves don't disappear, they continue as if they had never met once they get beyond each other. Using the words macro as meaning very big and using the word micro to mean very small, any action in the macro had its beginning in the micro and any action in the micro will show up in the macro.

 

 

if black holes suck local matter in, and shoot out radiation, can that radiant energy be turned back into matter somehow? or does it just fill the void between stars affecting the physical universe very little?

 

 

Black Holes don't exactly suck local matter in. It's more like local matter falls in. As for the outgoing radiation, there is nothing particularly strange about this radiation except perhaps its intensity. This radiation could indeed be used to create particles.

 

 

actually the more i think about it the more absurd it sounds

 

 

Why? Doesn't sound absurd to me.

 

 

 

its like there is a basic imbalance in the very slight form of energy [of gravity] a polarity, like how the annihilation of twin protons, an anti proton and a proton, there is energy left over, and lots of it as well as normal matter. similarly gravity can be the expression of a similarly imbalanced system where the instantaneous speed of gravity is only noticeable when you have very large amounts of mass trying to bring equilibrium "to the force" of gravity.

 

Any energy in electron/positron type reactions is in the form of momentum, etc. These is no energy lost.

 

Yes, I can see how gravity can be seen as an imbalanced system.

 

Hmmm. Gravity doesn't propagate instantely. IMO gravity doesn't move through space and time, gravity is measured by clocks (time) and rulers (space). These measurements indicate that gravity propagates at a certain rate, but this is a measurement, not a statement of the nature of gravity. BTW, the speed of light is the speed with which light interacts with gravity as in the General Relativity equation T1 = T1 ( 1 + gh/C^2).

 

 

*i'm honestly busting a gut here.

 

 

Seem to me to be doing fine.

 

 

i mean most of the other elemental forces are very imperfect, as in the imbalances in those forces yeild huge amounts of energy compared to gravity,

 

 

This seems to be what everyone thinks, but it isn't true. Both gravity and electric charge spread outward as the same rate, inverse of the distance squared. The numerical portion of the Universal Gravitational Constant is 6.67 X 10^-11 and the numerical portion of the permittivity of free space is 8.85 X 10^-12, implying that gravity is about 1/10 electrical.

The reason we see the effects of gravity is there is no balancing negative gravity to cancell out the positive gravity.

 

 

 

gravity thus can be thought of as a (can't decide between long or short wave, or if it can be expressed as a wave form at all, but i'll go with very long wave nearly flat) near perfect elemental force, it has a lot of power but in the physical universe the here and there

 

 

 

Apparently the energy of a graviton is 1.96 X 10^9 J. This is a tremendous amount of energy. Accordingly the wavelength would be very short.

 

 

[positive and negative] of gravity have very distinct states [nearly identical] such that the speed as measured by an observer* of gravity is almost always a constant, if not always, the energy shift seems uniformly but "slowly" although instantaneous, like its energy flow is direct without the use of a phantom graviton particle, that energy transmition being very smooth and predictable.

 

 

Much becomes more clear if you get rid of the idea that the speed of gravity is infinite. If we measure the speed of gravity in terms of space and time, then gravity acts like its own brakes (I.E. gravity slows time as in T1 = T2 ( 1 + gh/C^2)

 

 

miserably confused now...

 

Take a strong drink. Booze always removes confusion.

 

 

 

*what of the observer who is not being accelerated by gravity... how does time pass for him? if we escaped sols domain and took a measurement would we see that gravity is much faster from the outside looking in?

 

 

Assuming the measurement was something like using an excited atom, then yes, gravity would be faster on the outside.

 

 

can anything even exists without gravity? the great unificator that allows this to associate with that slowly enough for interactions to take place, fast enough for them to be noticed? like a pair of tuning forks in vacuum vibrating in synchronized unison? hmmmm wait a minute... does that fork work trick work in vacuum?

 

 

 

Gravity is associated with energy, so if no gravity existed no energy would exist. IMO energy is the thing that "exists" and gravity controls its actions.

 

 

 

 

perhaps because everything is already vibrating and resonance between two objects is simply a shared frequency at which they hum, amplicfied so we can see it?

 

We can measure and describe gravity but this does not say what the nature of gravity is.

[Bobby]

Originally Posted by Southtown

If gravity travels at c, then the earth would travel a path perpendicular to the Sun's position as it was 8.3 minutes ago sending us gradually further and further into space.

 

yeah thats what we were getting at, good link but im still struggling to believe that gravity goes faster then c...

 

 

Bad logic. The Earth does not orbit the sun, rather they both orbit a common center of gravity in spacetime. The fact that the earth is now orbiting a spot that existed eight minutes ago has absolutely nothing to do with it. Try plotting the orbits of the sun and the earth in spacetime and you will see there is not the slighest problem. Van????? is trying to sell books at the expense of good science.