Does gravity travel at the speed of light?

Question

According to Einstien it does.

Light and gravity share a relationship since this is true. This makes me wonder.

Answer 1

Einstein proposed in his General Relativity theory that what is called gravity is really the result of curved space-time. he described gravity as a warping of space time fabric around a massive object. more the mass more the space-time warping and stronger the gravity.

according to general relativity light travels in a curved space taking the shortest path between two point, therefore light is deflected toward a massive object . greater the gravity greater the light path is bent..

Answer 2

Wonder is GOOD!

Answer 3

when u jump do u fall down at the speed of light. DUH. no offense.

Answer 4

Gravity has no speed. Maybe you are thinking of the force acting on an object that results from gravity, but that doesn't happen at the spped of light,

Answer 5

So you are correct that there is a relationship.  Here it is.

As best we can tell, gravity follows a 1/r^2 law.  Therefore, the graviton must be massless.  Therefore, it (and the gravitational force it mediates) must propagate at c.

The electromagnetic force also follows a 1/r^2 law.  The photon is, as far as we can tell, massless.  Therefore, light (and the electromagnetic force) propagates at c.

The speed of light, c, is somewhat misnamed.  You could just as easily call it the speed of gravity or the speed of any massless particle.  The best term for it would be that it is the conversion factor between our units of time and our units of space.  In a more natural system of units, you use the same thing to measure time and space, and you don't need c--it's just one.  Scientists who study any kind of relativistic phenomena generally use such units.

Joben--You're over-reading what I said.  I'm not talking about a unified theory (that's what string theorists do).  I'm talking about two theories. Gravity is the manifestation of a spin-2 graviton that couples to stress energy.  EM is the manifestation of a photon that couples to charge.  The obvious thing they have in common is that the photon and the graviton are both massless or nearly massless, so they both propagate at light speed.  I'm not suggesting that they are somehow the same particle under some broken symmetry or anything like that (although they may be).  The fundamental difference lies in the spin.  The graviton has spin 2, so gravity can be only attractive.  The photon has spin 1, so the electromagnetic interaction can be repulsive or attractive.

As for Einstein he was looking for the wrong thing in the wrong way.  He became too impressed by his success in GR modeling gravity geometrically and convinced himself that this was the road to unification.  In the last 20 years of his life, he was more of an obstacle to progress than anything else.  He discouraged younger theorists at Princeton who were probably on the right track to describing gravity, which is to pitch the foundations of GR and re-build it using quantum field theory.

And where do you get the idea that the magnetic moment of the electron is a thousand times bigger than anyone expects???

It is only twice as big as a very naive look would expect (g=1).  And only very, very slightly bigger than what a slightly more sophisticated look would yield (g=2).  Precision electroweak measurement of the tiny difference, g minus two, is one of the best experimental results we have to test the existance of heavy particles that would run in loop and correct g-2.

Answer 6

Mistress Bekki is obviously wrong.  Einstein looked for a unified field equation for 50 years and he couldn't account for gravity.  This is not proof, but I think the evidence is overwhelming that there is no such thing as gravity.

Newton's non-relativistic approximation for gravity says the force is equal to M1 * M2 divided by the square of the distance.  

Because M1 is proportional to the number of electrons and M2 is proportional to the number of electrons, and because Polykarp Kusch proved that the magnetic moment of the electron is a thousand times bigger than anyone expects,

then therefore we can say that Newton's non-relativistic approximation for gravity can be replaced by an equivalent approximation where instead of M1 and M2 we use the value for the number of electrons in the two objects.  

James Clerk Maxwell and his equations complete the new theory - proportional to the difference in electrical charge and inversely proportional to the square of the distance - gravity is a magnetic effect. And it behaves in an unusual way on earth because we have a magnetic field due to the rotation of molten metal core of the planet.  That magnetic field pulls us so very strongly that Galileo thought inertia was different from gravity.  The experience of the Apollo astronauts provides theoretical proof.  They said that the mass concentrations "pushed them away"

There now.  I feel better.  Slim Shady!

The answer to your question is "yeppper"

Answer 7

If me was to jump off a building. and hit the ground

at the speed of light. There would be nothing left to

clean up. It's not the gravity that kills you.

It's that sudden stop.

Now, if you could leap tall buildings. Einstein's Theory,

would no longer be theory. <}:-})

Answer 8

The effects of gravity move at the speed of light. If the sun was to vanish you would still see it for 8.5  seconds and the Earth's orbit would remain unchanged for the same period of time.

Answer 9

no

Answer 10

no obviously!!!

If you jumped off an airplane would u land in like .000000000000000000000000000000000000000... seconds

i dont think so no time for the parachute!!!!!

Answer 11

Gravity does not travel, gravity is a force which causes things to travel towards the centre of the earth.

Answer 12

I believe gravity is just a force.  It doesn't travel anywhere.

Answer 13

that appears to the current theory.

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