January 27, 2003
DOWN HOME:
Speed of gravity has such a pull
___Now, here's some news you can use: Scientists have measured the speed of gravity.
___Ed Fomalont, an astronomer at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, and Sergei Kopeikin, a physicist at the University of Missouri, recently borrowed the planet Jupiter and a bright quasar from way in outer space to conduct the gravity-speed experiment.
___Jupiter passed between Earth and the quasar, and the scientists measured how the gravity of Jupiter "bent" the radio waves coming from the quasar.
___They reportedly wouldn't be more tickled if President Bush told them they could fly the Space Shuttle to Mars on their lunch break.
___"Newton thought gravity's force was instantaneous," Kopeikin said in a statement released by NASA. "Einstein assumed it moved at the speed of light, but until now, no one had measured it."
___"We have determined gravity's propagation speed is equal to the speed of light within an accuracy of 20 percent," Fomalont added.
___Years ago, if you asked me the speed of gravity, I would have given you a very precise answer: "Depends."
___As a child, I learned a glass of red Kool-Aid falls to the kitchen floor quite quickly, but a string of soap bubbles can take forever to bounce off the countertop and pop.
___A few years ago, however, I clocked the speed of gravity at 38 years and three months. That's how long gravity required to take control of my body. After my 38th birthday, gravity began straining heretofore supple muscles and tendons. Gravity fixed its irresistible force upon my hair follicles. Gravity tugged at my arches and yanked at my jowls. Thirty-eight years and three months is the speed of gravity, "within an accuracy of 20 percent."
___But no. Fomalont and Kopeikin say it travels at the speed of light--186,300 miles per second. "They achieved a precision equal to the width of a human hair seen from 250 miles away," according to NASA. I don't know how wide a hair looks from 250 miles, but I guess it's skinny.
___Their information is supposed to be important to "physicists working on unified field theories that attempt to combine particle physics with Einstein's general theory of relativity and electromagnetic theory." I'd bet it's important to anybody who ever dropped the soap in the shower, let a piece of toast and jelly slip off a plate while walking across carpet or missed the last step of the stairs.
___Actually, I'm amazed by such scientific information. Who knew you could measure a quark's radio waves and determine the speed of gravity? More amazing is God's precise design, which sets the pace for the speed of both light and gravity. Most amazing is the breadth and depth of God's love--a love so infinite it numbers the hairs of our heads, which, for some people, gets easier all the time.
The Baptist Standard
News of religion, faith, missions, Bible study and Christian ministry among Texas Baptist churches, in the BGCT, the Southern Baptist Convention ( SBC ) and around the world.
Contents/ Masthead / Why We're Here / Links / Archive / E-mail us/ SUBSCRIBE!/ Signup for FirstLook
|