Thought you might be interested in this since it deals with matter in
motion altering the general fabric of space, it was originally posted to
vortex-l;
Einstein Proved Correct Again:
Time & Space Can Bend
3-27-98
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Einstein has been proved right yet
again, an international team of researchers said Thursday. They said
observations of U.S. satellites orbiting Earth showed that a spinning
body can curve space -- something Albert Einstein predicted in his
general theory of relativity. Einstein said the spin of a body must
change the geometry of the universe by generating space-time
curvature.
He called it ``frame dragging'' but it is also known as the
Lense-Thirring effect, after Austrian physicists Josef Lense and Hans
Thirring, who said celestial bodies that rotate, such as the Sun, create
a force that pulls space towards them. The effect is so strong it
should affect a clock rotating slowly around a spinning body. Ignazio
Ciufolini of the Universita di Roma ``La Sapienza'' and colleagues
tested and measured the effect by analyzing the orbits of two NASA
satellites, LAGEOS and LAGEOSII.
They used lasers to measure tiny changes in the orbits of the
satellites and concluded the Earth was affecting them in a way that
could not be accounted for by gravity or tidal forces. ``Based on the
analysis of the orbits of the ... satellites LAGEOS and LAGEOS II,
we conclude that the Lense-Thirring effect exists,'' they wrote in a
report in the journal Science.
``This direct measurement of the Lense-Thirring effect confirms one
of the remaining fundamental predictions of general relativity, that a
current of mass-energy, such as a spinning mass, as a result of its
mass motion changes the geometry of the universe by generating
space-time curvature.''
Jerry W. Decker / http://keelynet.com
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