Gravity And Gravity Experiments
Why is the scientific world so excited over the fact that we may have discovered gravitational waves in space? Since I have been seeing a lot about this lately I decided I would like to know a little more about it and was sure that some of you would too, so I decided to do an investigation. First of all let me begin by saying scientists consider gravitational waves a ripple in time and space, so this may give you a little hint of where we are going with this. A century ago Albert Einstein predicted these waves did exist, but nobody has been able to prove it perhaps until now. An experiment has been going on for years called LIGO, which stands for Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory. One would think it should be ALIGO but it isn’t. Its purpose is to use detectors located in Hanford, Washington, and Livingston Louisiana to look for these gravitational waves. It is being said the scientists running this experiment are now in the process of writing a paper about what they have found. Once before scientists thought they had found gravitational waves resulting from an experiment in the United States called BICEP2. The scientists had called a press conference to announce their discovery, but others have since pointed out that the signals they found could have been due to space dust.
The LIGO team will be a lot more cautious and will not make a claim unless they are absolutely certain they are right. One of the things scientists claim is we will be able use gravitational waves to observe the universe in a way we were never able to do before. Scientists believe that at least some of these waves are generated at the edge of black holes at the beginning of time. When Einstein predicted them he said they would be caused by extremely violent events. He was talking about events such as two black holes slamming into each other. If these waves exist, when they spread out they would stretch time and space. The ripples should be able to be picked up by lasers at the LIGO experiment. These lasers measure the length using 24 km long pipes at the facility. Supposedly these waves were detected and a statement was made by the LIGO team which said these were not waves which were artificially induced to test the equipment. If these waves do exist it will be very interesting to find out the different uses we put them to.
Another exciting discovery is said to have been made, one which anyone who has ever seen a science fiction movie showing people in a spaceship will appreciate. A scientific paper which was released claims it is possible to produce artificial gravity and detect gravitational fields at will by using magnetic fields and using them to produce new technologies. The paper was published in the prestigious scientific journal Physical Review D. I don’t think I have to tell anybody how important this would be for space travel. Our astronauts continually lose bone mass and muscle mass as they live and work in space and while exercise helps it does not relieve the problem. If we could produce the same amount of gravity in a spaceship that we are used to on the planet Earth, presumably all these problems would go away. Prof. Andre Fuzfa of Namur University says all this is possible. In his paper he has even shown mathematical proof for a device which can create detectable gravitational fields. The basis for this device would be superconducting magnets equivalent to those used at CERN, by the Large Hadron Collider. Another use for such a device would be in communications since it would eliminate the need for satellites when you make a call to the other side of the world. I am sure we will discover many other uses for a device like this over the years.
A study about scientific papers was conducted in 2015 and the results were startling. It found nearly all scientific papers were controlled by six corporations. I assume they are talking about scientific papers published in the United States, but I am not entirely sure. The problem is there were not that many publishers of scientific papers that are considered reputable and when other publishers are used not that much attention may be paid to the paper. The study was conducted by a professor from the University of Montréal’s School of Library and Information Science and included many different researchers. They all found that nearly all scientific papers were controlled by the same six corporations. They also found these publishers had large profit margins of nearly 40%. Some scientists feel that since the print era is over, these publishers may not be needed anymore since papers could be published in other ways over the Internet. The names of the publishers are, ACS, Reed Elsevier, Sage, Taylor & Francis, Springer, and Wiley Blackwell, according to an article on the True Activist website.
New groundbreaking research could change the way scientists now think of the universe. There is a subatomic particle called a Kaon. Research into its decay could change the way we think of physics and how it operates. Scientists noticed something strange when matter is swapped out for antimatter, because it changes the behavior of the Kaons. IF this is verified it will change the standard model of physics, because it changes our present understanding of the fundamental particles and the forces between. We still have a way to go to find out if this is accurate, but if we do find out it is, things are going to be a lot different in the field of physics.
A Year-long experiment is taking place and using the Galileo satellites. While performing other maneuvers the satellites had accidentally become extremely useful scientifically as tools testing Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity by measuring more accurately than ever the way gravity affects the passing of time. The way the satellites are set up they climb about 8500 km twice per day which has an effect on the gravity pulling on them. This makes them very useful in the experiment. While we already know that clocks run faster on the ground we are not getting a more accurate prediction of the differences depending on the force of gravity.
It is starting to look like we will be hearing a lot about scientific breakthroughs due to gravity experiments. There is a lot in the pot going on right now and it is only a matter of time before we start finding out some startling things.
