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Towards a new test of general relativity? (esa.int)
15 points by hhm on Sept 28, 2008 | hide | past | favorite | 8 comments


the measured field is a surprising one hundred million trillion times larger than Einstein’s General Relativity predicts

That's a factor of 10^20. Such a huge discrepancy with GR beggars belief, so I'd bet there's something else (and probably more banal) going on. On the other hand, if their measurements and interpretation are right, this smells like a Prize.


I believe this is the home page of one of the researchers: http://www.ilsb.tuwien.ac.at/~tajmar/

Link to a pertinent paper: http://www.arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0603033v1


Is this legit? could we use it to make a warp drive?


Maybe. No.


Why not a warp drive?


Interesting that this involves a rotating superconductor. There have been a lot of predictions from various theoretical camps that quickly-rotating superconductors would have measurably-strange effects. Most of these camps have been on the fringes. I wonder if the measured deviance marries up with any of the predictions.


assuming the detected effect is real, which might be proven with subsequent experiments, could someone broadly detail what possible applications could result?


Interesting. It is a little unclear to me from this article the nature of the discrepancy between the predicted strength of the gravitomagnetic field from general relativity and what the researchers claim to be observing. Whence the increase in strength in the gravitomagnetic field from predictions? Is it an effect from quantum theory? Maybe the article just doesn't go into detail enough, but seems to me either there needs to be a satisfactory explanation for this discrepancy, or, what they are observing is not the gravitomagnetic field.




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