[jr2]

The First Test That Proves General Theory of Relativity Wrong
A spinning top increases its weight much more than expected



According to Einstein's theory of general relativity, a moving mass should create another field, called gravitomagnetic field, besides its static gravitational field. This field has now been measured for the first time and to the scientists' astonishment, it proved to be no less than one hundred million trillion times larger than Einstein's General Relativity predicts.

This gravitomagnetic field is similar to the magnetic field produced by a moving electric charge (hence the name "gravitomagnetic" analogous to "electromagnetic"). For example, the electric charges moving in a coil produce a magnetic field - such a coil behaves like a magnet. Similarly, the gravitomagnetic field can be produced to be a mass moving in a circle. What the electric charge is for electromagnetism, mass is for gravitation theory (the general theory of relativity).

A spinning top weights more than the same top standing    still. However, according to Einstein's theory, the difference is negligible. It should be so small that we shouldn't even be capable of measuring it. But now scientists from the European Space Agancy, Martin Tajmar, Clovis de Matos and their colleagues, have actually measured it. At first they couldn't believe the result.

"We ran more than 250 experiments, improved the facility over 3 years and discussed the validity of the results for 8 months before making this announcement. Now we are confident about the measurement," says Tajmar. They hope other physicists will now conduct their own versions of the experiment so they could be absolutely certain that they have really measured the gravitomagnetic field and not something else. This may be the first empiric clue for how to merge together quantum mechanics and general theory of relativity in a single unified theory.

"If confirmed, this would be a major breakthrough," says Tajmar, "it opens up a new means of investigating general relativity and its consequences in the quantum world."



The experiment involved a ring of superconducting material rotating up to 6 500 times a minute. According to quantum theory, spinning superconductors should produce a weak magnetic field. The problem was that Tajmar and de Matos experiments with spinning superconductors didn't seem to fit the theory - although in all other aspects the quantum theory gives incredibly accurate predictions. Tajmar and de Matos then had the idea that maybe the quantum theory wasn't wrong after all but that there was some additional effect overlapping over their experiments, some effect they neglected.

What could this other effect be? They thought maybe it's the gravitomagnetic field - the fact that the spinning top exerts a higher gravitational force. So, they placed around the spinning superconductor a series of very sensible acceleration sensors for measuring whether this effect really existed. They obtained more than they bargained for!

Although the acceleration produced by the spinning superconductor was 100 millionths of the acceleration due to the Earth's gravitational field, it is a surprising one hundred million trillion times larger than Einstein's General Relativity predicts. Thus, the spinning top generated a much more powerful gravitomagnetic field than expected.

Now, it remains the need for a proper theory. Scientists can also now check whether candidate theories, such as the string theory, can describe this experiment correctly. Moreover, this experiment shows that gravitational waves should be much more easily to detect than previously thought.

Photo: the experimental apparatus. Credits: ESA

Thoughts?  There's a bunch of comments on the site if anyone wants to check them out / comment over there.  I thought it mildly interesting.  I'm sure the scientist types here will think it more so.

[Colonol Dekker]

Unified theory provided by a dredel? Thanks Judaic peoples!

[headdie]

my initial thoughts bounce around the area of does motion as either the change of position of matter or the exertion of the energy needed to move that mass affect the dimensional barriers, could this relate to the effect that movement has on time.

[Colonol Dekker]

HG wells time machine design, the inner-space miniaturisation centrifuge, mass effect relays, the device from that Jodie Foster film 'contact'. . . . .
 
 
They could all be possible?

[watsisname]

It amazes me how often this "theory-shattering news" gets spread around in slightly different forms.  Anytime I see such an article involving spinning superconductors and gravitomagnetism and MONTHS OF TESTS AND ANALYSIS BEFORE MAKING THIS ANNOUNCEMENT!!!111, I die a little. :/

[The E]

Nothing in there seems to scream "general Relativity is wrong". It's just not 100% right. Which is perfectly normal in science. Theories get tested and refined all the time. News at eleven.

[Dark RevenantX]

It just happened to be numerically off by 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 times.  That doesn't mean it was completely wrong...

[General Battuta]

It just happened to be numerically off by 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 times.  That doesn't mean it was completely wrong...

The magnitude of the error is irrelevant. Whether it was off by 10 times or ten trillion is not the point here. If it's significantly different from predictions, that's all that's of interest.

As The_E said, nothing about this suggests that "general relativity is wrong". What it does suggest is that there may be a hole in GR which will allow new theoretical discoveries, much as holes in Newtonian mechanics allowed the discovery of relativity.

[Klaustrophobia]

It just happened to be numerically off by 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 times.  That doesn't mean it was completely wrong...

the magnitudes involved here are so small simple rounding error in calculation or measurement uncertainty could easily account for that.

i feel kindof bad for doing this, as something of a scientist myself, but i read internet science articles like this with a HUGE amount of skepticsim.  there is some rediculous stuff that gets thrown around the internet.  like one about cold fusion in essentially a mayonase jar.     legitimate experiments and results will be published in journals.

that said, if this is true, yeah it's kindof interesting.  although i don't know a whole lot of quantum mechanics and no general relativity at all.  it does rather seem that this effect is still negligible, even at 10^18 times the original prediction.

[Bobboau]

if real this could provide a mechanism for artificial gravity.

[SpardaSon21]

Right, because generating enough gravitometric force to equal one gravity will be easy.
// end sarcasm

[BloodEagle]

But think of the applications!

I don't know about you, but I want to walk on my ceiling whenever it pleases me. 

[SpardaSon21]

Floors were invented for a reason, dammit!

[Herra Tohtori]

There's no real description of the test setup or measurement techniques. I'm going to abstain from further comments before I see this in some peer reviewed publication.

However, some key questions that come into my mind:

-How does the effect change when scaled up or down? Inverse square of distance? Something different? It's already known that general relativity doesn't exactly produce 1:1 results matching reality when the scale gets so small that quantum phenomena start to dominate, and possibly also when you're dealing with galactic and intergalactic scales of distances. Dark matter assumption relies almost completely on the assumption that general relativity produces reliable predictions at large scales at which the anomalies are observed in stars orbiting galaxies.

-Any relation to Pioneer anomaly (which, if interpreted as accurate, would actually be the first test to prove numerical inaccuracy in predictions given by General Relativity)?

-Does the spinning increase the disk's inertial mass? Is this change (kinetic mass) significantly larger or smaller than the allegedly observed change in gravitational mass?

No matter what the outcome of this will be, it's always exciting to see some new research stir up the established scientific facts. Personally I damn well hope that this'll lead to better understanding of gravity and who knows, maybe even gravitic technology? After all, some of the declarations based on General Relativity are rather depressing, like the complete disallowance of superluminal speeds...

[Mefustae]

I'd take this more seriously if it didn't have a moronic title. Seriously, they couldn't have made up a worse title if they tried.

[Grizzly]

Right, because generating enough gravitometric force to equal one gravity will be easy.
// end sarcasm

Who said it would be neccesary?

[castor]

is a surprising one hundred million trillion times larger than Einstein's General Relativity predicts.

If GTR itself was wrong hadn't that been noticed already, in all the observations they've made in the field of astrophysics?

[TESLA]

piff,


wont be possible without a flux capacitor 

[Colonol Dekker]

Mister fusion will be here in five years or less!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeLorean_time_machine#Mr._Fusion

[jr2]

I was kind of skeptical of this too... but isn't softpedia err.. a little bit above that?  I don't see why they would "let's make like a tabloid and spread this nonsense around"... of course, I don't know, maybe they do do that, but it wouldn't be good for one's name.  *shrugs* well it's interesting anyway.