Jump to content

Recommended Posts

Posted

Those clever experiments developed by scientists along the years, as light spectrum on a prism, resonances, beam interruption wheels, mercury barometer column, magnetic induction, Millikan's, and many other share great lucidity in their conceptions.

 

How would you design a clever experiment to measure the propagation speed of gravity ?

  • 2 weeks later...
Posted

It has been done through the rate at which a couple of pulsars loses its orbital energy, and rewarded with a Nobel prize.

 

This experiment, where the orbital speed modulates the pulsar's emission frequency through Doppler effect, indicates some orbital energy loss through the radiation of gravity waves, and the rate of loss is consistent with gravity propagating at the speed of light. Though, you have plenty of room to improve the accuracy!

 

Older experiments involved Webber bars, but as far as I understand (=little) these experiments produced and detected only near-field waves, which don't even need propagating waves (with a finite speed) to exist.

 

A serious difficulty: gravity waves haven't been detected up to now (I believe), which won't help measure their speed.

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.