sciencedaily.com— Putting Relativity To The Test, NASA's Gravity Probe B Experiment Is One Step Away From Revealing If Einstein Was Right.
Oct 8, 2005View in Crawl 4
science is about ultimate redundancy with hope of lowering the probability for error- yet ultimately all things do have a degree of faith built into them. For example, faith that this instrument runs as planned, that the calculations for those instruments purpose are free of errors, that the prior knowledge used for building these tests is factual (ie: proofs etc.).The causal chain is long but with many experiments it is rigid and hole-free (seemingly) and we can put a lot of weight on them. I believe this is one of the many experiments with such a trail.
Just to confirm--it is not a matter of right vs. wrong. Newton had a good description of gravity, particularly as it applied to the solar system. Then Einstein's theories confirmed that Newton's predictions have limited accuracy because they don't take general relativity into account. The gravity probe b is intended to reveal if there is even more at play and if there are other things that could lead to even greater accuracy.
Its funny though for me because my understanding of gravity was more in the Newtonian idea of a force rather then the space-time example given in the article. Thanks digg for making me that much more smarter today.Wouldn't it be funny if the probe proved Einstein wrong? That would really but a wrench in so much scientific thinking, now wouldn't it? I think though that the perpetual testing of ideas is the only way to move forward, otherwise one might get stuck going down the wrong train of thought and study.
rundunOct 8, 2005
You Should Ask Albert For That!
justincoombs21Oct 8, 2005
science is about ultimate redundancy with hope of lowering the probability for error- yet ultimately all things do have a degree of faith built into them. For example, faith that this instrument runs as planned, that the calculations for those instruments purpose are free of errors, that the prior knowledge used for building these tests is factual (ie: proofs etc.).The causal chain is long but with many experiments it is rigid and hole-free (seemingly) and we can put a lot of weight on them. I believe this is one of the many experiments with such a trail.
leonffsOct 8, 2005
georgegui deleted his original message. hypocritical troll alert. does it annoy you when people don't capitalize at all!? i hope it does!
tk99Oct 8, 2005
Wait what happens if it turns out he's wrong?
tyninOct 9, 2005
I've been following this for years now. I'm excited they are finally done collecting data. Now just another year or 2 to wait for the results.
tr0gd0rrOct 9, 2005
Just to confirm--it is not a matter of right vs. wrong. Newton had a good description of gravity, particularly as it applied to the solar system. Then Einstein's theories confirmed that Newton's predictions have limited accuracy because they don't take general relativity into account. The gravity probe b is intended to reveal if there is even more at play and if there are other things that could lead to even greater accuracy.
mikereadsOct 9, 2005
Its funny though for me because my understanding of gravity was more in the Newtonian idea of a force rather then the space-time example given in the article. Thanks digg for making me that much more smarter today.Wouldn't it be funny if the probe proved Einstein wrong? That would really but a wrench in so much scientific thinking, now wouldn't it? I think though that the perpetual testing of ideas is the only way to move forward, otherwise one might get stuck going down the wrong train of thought and study.
genepooldesignDec 31, 2008
People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. Have you even read that sentence you just typed?