News tagged with general relativity theory

When dark energy turned on (Update)

(PhysOrg.com) -- Some six billion light years distant, almost halfway from now back to the big bang, the universe was undergoing an elemental change. Held back until then by the mutual gravitational attraction ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Mar 30, 2012 | popularity 4 / 5 (19) | comments 68 | with audio podcast

The annihilating effects of space travel

Long distance space travel could create the ultimate 'killer entrance', devastating your destination and anything around the arriving spacecraft, according to calculations by Professor Geraint Lewis and two ...

Physics / General Physics

created Mar 12, 2012 | popularity 3.8 / 5 (24) | comments 34 | with audio podcast

Gravitational lens reveals details of distant, ancient galaxy

Thanks to the presence of a natural "zoom lens" in space, University of Chicago scientists working with NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have obtained a uniquely close-up look at the brightest gravitationally ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Mar 08, 2012 | popularity 4.6 / 5 (21) | comments 29 | with audio podcast

Pulsars: The Universe's gift to physics

Pulsars, superdense neutron stars, are perhaps the most extraordinary physics laboratories in the Universe. Research on these extreme and exotic objects already has produced two Nobel Prizes. Pulsar researchers now are poised ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Feb 19, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (6) | comments 47 | with audio podcast

Distorting the lens

(PhysOrg.com) -- One of the most bizarre predictions of Einstein's Theory of General Relativity is the existence of back holes, objects that are so dense that not even light can escape from their gravitational ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Feb 09, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (3) | comments 5

Scientists gear up to take a picture of a black hole

On Wednesday, Jan. 18, astronomers, physicists and scientists from related fields will convene in Tucson, Ariz. from across the world to discuss an endeavor that only a few years ago would have been regarded as nothing less ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Jan 14, 2012 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (59) | comments 34 | with audio podcast

Physicists propose test for loop quantum gravity

(PhysOrg.com) -- As a quantum theory of gravity, loop quantum gravity could potentially solve one of the biggest problems in physics: reconciling general relativity and quantum mechanics. But like all tentative ...

Physics / Quantum Physics

created Jan 03, 2012 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (34) | comments 106 | with audio podcast feature

A 40-year-old puzzle of superstring theory solved by supercomputer

A group of three researchers from KEK, Shizuoka University and Osaka University has for the first time revealed the way our universe was born with 3 spatial dimensions from 10-dimensional superstring theory in which spacetime ...

Physics / General Physics

created Dec 23, 2011 | popularity 4.6 / 5 (83) | comments 72 | with audio podcast

String theory researchers simulate big-bang on supercomputer

(PhysOrg.com) -- A trio of Japanese physicists have applied a reformulation of string theory, called IIB, whereby matrices are used to describe the properties of the physical universe, on a supercomputer, to effectively sho ...

Physics / General Physics

created Dec 14, 2011 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (24) | comments 75 | with audio podcast weblog

A serendipitous gravitational lens

(PhysOrg.com) -- The path traveled by a light beam will bend in the presence of matter. This remarkable prediction, reached by Einstein in his theory of general relativity, was confirmed by observations of ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Nov 21, 2011 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (6) | comments 3 | with audio podcast

One clock with two times: When quantum mechanics meets general relativity

The unification of quantum mechanics and Einstein's general relativity is one of the most exciting and still open questions in modern physics. General relativity, the joint theory of gravity, space and time ...

Physics / Quantum Physics

created Oct 19, 2011 | popularity 4.6 / 5 (22) | comments 8 | with audio podcast

Why Einstein was wrong about being wrong

If you want to get your mind around the research that won three astronomers the Nobel Prize in physics last week, it helps to think of the universe as a lump of dough - raisin-bread dough, to be precise - mixed, kneaded and ...

Physics / General Physics

created Oct 14, 2011 | popularity 4.4 / 5 (16) | comments 113

Light from galaxy clusters confirms theory of relativity

All observations in astronomy are based on light emitted from stars and galaxies and, according to the general theory of relativity, the light will be affected by gravity. At the same time all interpretations ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Sep 28, 2011 | popularity 3.6 / 5 (14) | comments 29 | with audio podcast

Developing more accurate cold atom accelerometers

For the first time, a team of French physicists, supported by CNES and ESA, has succeeded in developing a vibration-resistant cold atom accelerometer. Tested in parabolic flight, this prototype was able to ...

Physics / General Physics

created Sep 26, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (2) | comments 4

Challenging Einstein is usually a losing venture

(AP) -- Betting against Einstein and his theory of relativity is a way to go broke. For more than a century, everyone from physicists to the Nazi Party - which encouraged the publication of the tract "One ...

Physics / General Physics

created Sep 23, 2011 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (18) | comments 27