How fast is Gravity?

I know this is probably common knowledge to the sci-techs, but I am having a hard time finding an answer to this question. Here are my assumptions:

Gravity has an infinite reach and its strength diminishes by the Kepler inverse squared law.

A particle accelerator uses immense amounts of energy to smash atoms together. In the "bubble chamber" you see the result of new particles and some with a mass GREATER than the original particles. Tiny amounts of mass are created from energy.

My Question is: You made two atom smashes and put one on the moon and the other here on earth. When you fire them up and create tiny bits of matter, how long does it take the gravity of this new matter to reach out an touch each other? What is the speed of gravity?

gravity is faster than light. gravity is just a depression in the fabric of our universe. It actually doesnt have a speed realy but for all purposes it is faster than light

reply to post by Reneau



So are you saying that as soon as the new mass is created the gravity will reach out across space and connect instatly? I thought that nothing is faster than the speed of light?

the way it was taught to me by Myers (physics teacher)

If the gravity reaches that of lets say a black hole light cannot excape, gravity is going beyond the light so there for gravity is faster than light.

but gravity makes time so gravity is time you can't be faster than your self. every thing, matter and energy must adhear to gravity

[edit on 8/23/2008 by Reneau]

reply to post by Reneau


Doesn't make sense to me, but I have not found a better theory. Thanks

Originally posted by Setharoo
reply to post by Reneau

 

So are you saying that as soon as the new mass is created the gravity will reach out across space and connect instatly? I thought that nothing is faster than the speed of light?

A few things wrong with your idea here. First, mass (as far as we know) isn't created in this universe anymore. All of the matter (and therefore, energy) that is present now was created during the big bang. Matter can change form, but the energy is always there.

For the next part, think about it this way, if gravity reached out for something, where would it be reaching from? There is no origin point for gravity, it does not reach from one part of space to another, in the sense that it is located at one central point and then affects mass. Gravity is more of an attribute, or quality, of mass.

As stated earlier, gravity can be visualized as a large sheet of fabric which massive bodies (stars, planets, etc.) all rest on. The more massive the body the bigger the indent in the sheet it makes. The indentation of space is what we would call gravity.

Your question about matter being created and how long it would take to affect, is a bit off. The converted energy (if it becomes more massive) would be too small to notice an effect from one to the other. Gravity is actually a really, really weak force. It takes quite a large amount of mass to affect something as small as a human being. Our ability to jump shows how chemical reactions in our muscles can over come the gravity 'generated' by the entire mass of the earth.

As far as the speed of gravity is concerned. There are theories about gravitational waves which carry this force, like a ripple through water, but as far as I can remember no scientific evidence has shown them to exist.

If you're wondering about the acceleration of gravity, wikipedia defines it as such...

On the surface of the Earth, all objects fall with an acceleration of somewhere between 9.78 and 9.82 m/s² depending on latitude, with a conventional standard value of exactly 9.80665 m/s², (approx. 32.174 ft/s2).

To show how distance greatly decreases the strength of gravity we can look at the formula.

where:

m is the mass of an object,
r is the distance from center of the object to the location we are considering,
r^ is the unit length vector from center of the object to the location we are considering,
G is the gravitational constant of the universe.

So even if the object is really massive, the force can severely weaken if they aren't very close because it is divided by the square of the distance.

I hope this clears some of it up, if not ask away and I'll do my best. The whole gravity thing is sort of hard to explain, so I may not have done the best job initially.

reply to post by Parabol


You did a good job on that agreed that the gravity of the matter in question would allways be there even before the collision.

would antimatter have antigravity properties hmmm...

General relativity predicts G = c. That is, the Speed of Gravity is equal to the Speed of Light.

would antimatter have antigravity properties hmmm...

Very short answer. No. Antimatter doesn't have negative mass. Antimatter has to do with the charge not the mass.

[edit on 23-8-2008 by sardion2000]

I am faster than gravity. (At least earths gravity)

how can I prove this?

Have you ever mishandled an object and it slips your grip and gravity takes over drawing it towards the ground?

9 times out of 10, when this happens unexpectedly, (i.e. No foreknowledge), I have the speed to react and intercept the object even though it has a head start. Yet, although not at terminal velocity, the object has mere feet until coliding with solid ground ending it's fall, yet, I am able to move faster than gravity's effect, advance below the object with reactive speed and perception, thus thwarting the inevitable because I am faster than gravity.

Try to do that on Jupiter. Is Gravity "faster" there? The answer is no. What you are talking about is strength, not speed. Gravity is a weakling when it comes to strength which is why it propagates at c, the speed of light.

Believe it or not but that is the way it is.


[edit on 24-8-2008 by sardion2000]

reply to post by Parabol


Thank you Parabol. The information is very useful. I have had these questions in the back of my mind since I was a teenager and I am thrilled to find a place that allows me to explore the answers. I tried sitting in the library sifting through books for many hours before I had access to the internet. Frankly, I had a lot more time when I was young. As I get older it seems that the effort involved to obtain this kind of technical knowledge is not worth the hours of research needed, just so I can satisfy my curiosity. Basically I am trying to say thank you for making it so easy!

I understand why you are downplaying the effects of gravity on my hypothetical "new mass" because the it is so small that it is extremely hard to measure. I guess the real question is: Can a particle accelerator actually create mass from energy? I remember reading this and was totally amazed that energy could be turned into mass. Am I mistaken as to what I remember.

If energy can be turned into mass then we have a paradox of physics and this is why I came up with the 2 accelerators idea. I have studied universal expansion and understand how the "fabric" of gravity has always been there, just stretching larger. I understand how waves of gravity would propagate throughout space (probably at the speed of light). I understand just how weak the force of gravity really is.

I DON'T understand how "new mass" that blinks into existence would instantaneously adapt to its new surroundings?

Originally posted by imd12c4funn
Have you ever mishandled an object and it slips your grip and gravity takes over drawing it towards the ground?

I think that you are referring to acceleration rather than the general effects of gravity. I believe that this means that you have enough energy to accelerate your hand faster than Earth's gravity would accelerate the bowling ball you just dropped. If your hand is not fast enough you get to experience the painful effects of deceleration on your foot!

Originally posted by sardion2000
General relativity predicts G = c. That is, the Speed of Gravity is equal to the Speed of Light.

Bingo. It would seem to me that, for now, G = C

The speed of gravity can be calculated from observations of the orbital decay rate of binary pulsars PSR 1913+16 and PSR B1534+12. The orbits of these pulsars around each other is decaying due to loss of energy in the form of gravitational radiation. The rate of this energy loss ("gravitational damping") can be measured, and since it depends on the speed of gravity, comparing the measured values to theory shows that the speed of gravity is equal to the speed of light to within 1%. [14] (However, measuring the speed of gravity by comparing theoretical results with experimental results will depend on the theory; use of a theory other than that of general relativity could in principle show a different speed, although the existence of gravitational damping at all implies that the speed cannot be infinite.)

[edit on 24-8-2008 by OnionCloud]

mmm...physics class, some time ago:

9.8 meters per second per second.

It has been said that energy cannot be turned into matter, or that it no longer is, I thought E=MC2, does this not work both ways around, although not currently possible to us to turn vast amounts of energy into small amounts of matter is it not theoretically possible?

Energy is never lost or created but changes forms right? Is matter not one of the forms energy can take?

Maybe I am wrong, I am interested to find out.

Originally posted by pluckynoonez
mmm...physics class, some time ago:

9.8 meters per second per second.

You are clearly mixing up the average acceleration of the force of gravity being applied to an object, with the actual speed at which changes in the gravitational field are carried out.

Sadly I was beaten to the chase but, yes, according to general relativity the speed at which gravitational fields respond to changes (i.e. mass moving or disappearing) is the speed of light.

Originally posted by CuriosityStrikes
It has been said that energy cannot be turned into matter, or that it no longer is, I thought E=MC2, does this not work both ways around, although not currently possible to us to turn vast amounts of energy into small amounts of matter is it not theoretically possible?

Energy is never lost or created but changes forms right? Is matter not one of the forms energy can take?

Maybe I am wrong, I am interested to find out.

I did know the answer to this quite well, but my physics is a bit rusty, I haven't used it in quite a while. E=MC^2 is used to calculate the amount of energy within the nuclear bonds of an atom. I am not 100% sure, but I don't believe that matter is actually turning into energy. The equation however I think you are thinking of is E=hf which is from quantum mechanics not general relativity.

[edit on 24-8-2008 by halfmask]

E=mc^2 is the equation for mass energy change. and I believe it to be possible for the change.

and thanks Saridon for clearing the antimatter thing up for me

Funny isn't it that all our cosmological formulas are based on gravity yet no one really can explain it, except for being a property of mass. Newton only attempted to explain the observations of gravity not the force itself and Einsteins rubber sheet analogy uses gravity itself as an explanation! and no explanation as to why matter should curve space.

The theory I like the best ATM is that gravity is a product of electrical interactions at the subatomic level, being that gravity it is a property of mass it's foundations must stem down to the very essence of matter and space.

Mainstream science will tell you it travels at the speed of light, I say action at a distance, practically instantaneous on our level of scale.

Well, the theory right now goes that the Higgs Boson would help us considerably in how things can be massless and how things have mass.

Experimental observation would elucidate how otherwise massless elementary particles nevertheless manage to construct mass in matter. More specifically, the Higgs boson would explain the difference between the massless photon and the relatively massive W and Z bosons. Elementary particle masses, and the differences between electromagnetism (caused by the photon) and the weak force (caused by the W and Z bosons), are critical to many aspects of the structure of microscopic (and hence macroscopic) matter; thus, if it exists, the Higgs boson is an integral and pervasive component of the material world.

Also, from the wiki article on the Higgs Mechanism:

The Higgs mechanism, also called the Brout-Englert-Higgs mechanism, or Higgs-Brout-Englert-Guralnik-Hagen-Kibble mechanism, or Anderson-Higgs mechanism, is a form of superconductivity in the vacuum. It considers all of space filled with a relativistically invariant quantum fluid called the Higgs field, whose motion prevents certain forces from propagating over long distances. Part of the Higgs field mixes with the force-carrying gauge fields to produce massive gauge bosons, while the rest of the Higgs field describes a new particle, called the Higgs boson. The range of the force and the mass of the gauge bosons are inverses in natural units, but the mass of the Higgs boson is different and depends on the details.

The mechanism is the only way elementary vector particles, like the
or the
can have a mass. Interactions with the associated Higgs boson gives mass to the quarks and leptons in the standard model. The Higgs mechanism is an example of tachyon condensation where the tachyon is the Higgs field.

A vector boson is a boson with spin equal to one unit of
(Planck's constant divided by 2π). In elementary particle physics, the vector bosons currently considered to be fundamental particles are all gauge bosons. The most familiar vector boson is the photon, or quantum of light, which is a gauge boson. For some time, through the 1970s and 80s, the search for intermediate vector bosons, vector bosons of "intermediate" mass, was a major topic in high energy physics.
Source

Quarks and Leptons are the two basic constituents of matter. Quarks can combine in various ways to make protons and neutrons. Leptons are a family of fundamental subatomic particle, composed of the electron, the muon, and the tauon (or tau particle), as well as their associated neutrinos (electron neutrino, muon neutrino, and tau neutrino).
Source 1, 2

If the Higg's Boson gives those particles mass, then the Higg's Boson should be what causes things to have mass since protons, neutrons, electrons, etc. make up matter. This is my speculation after reading since it isn't exactly said in plain words, so I could be wrong. Me fail english, that's unpossible!

But still, it seems logical to conclude that if the Higgs Boson gives vector particles mass, it's what causes things that aren't considered exotic (I don't know if that's the right way to put it) material to have mass.


Edit: Is there a way to get things to not appear as an external image other than uploading?


[edit on 24-8-2008 by OnionCloud]