Newton says its instant, Einstein says speed of light. I suspect both are wrong due to the effect the mass would have on the curvature of space.
My posts relating to the bending of spacetime were in relation to Notches question about the gravitational pull on the earth #19 and ajohn explaining that demonstrating the bending of space time is 'tricky' #27 - both explanations were not to do with the speed of gravity and I didn't say they wereFirst, many above are posting about the speed of light, which is completely different thing. All that about Edgington and rubber sheets is not for speed of gravity. Nothing to do with dark matter or energy either.
Yes, we should more correctly be stating the speed of the propogation of gravity, but I think most of us knew what we were talking about!One can talk about the speed of propagation of gravity.
Yup, hence:Gravity propagation speed is thought to be simply the speed of light. So far nobody has come up with a theory to modify that which looks reasonable.
It's been measured, and c still works within known errors.
"c"*, but that doesn't really have much relevance to us mere mortals.
...it is very interesting for gravitational wave scientists though
* Best current measurements to within -3 x 10^-15 and 7 x 10^-16 of c.
The story isn't clear. Deliberately so probably as he's claiming to have inspired James Dyson.Hold on... Let me get this straight....
Your exceedingly confused chemistry teacher asked you about gravity?
No doubt your physics teacher was telling you all about covalent bonding too?
Gravity does not move.Gravity moves at the speed of light.
Very sensitive machines can detect the change in local gravity caused by moving objects. A series of those machines across the world and some insanely accurate atomic clocks means that you can calculate the speed at which the gravity waves moves by when it shows up on each machine.
It also required two black holes colliding to give a big enough signal to work.
I'm afraid we are not looking at moving objects and assuming gravity moves.Gravity does not move.
What you see moving are objects that move because of gravity.
We are talking about the effects observed by say an event that causes a massive gravitational disturbance in one part of the universe (say two black holes colliding); when will we, in a distant part of the universe be able to detect this event?But an object with mass have effects on other objects and this is what you observe.
That's not quite as catchy when you're doing public outreach, or trying to persuade funding bodies though!They aren't waves they are disturbances in local gravity as measured here by us.
Einstein's theories that can be proved to be true in what could be called locally say solar system distances. Once things get further and further away the same theories are used to explain what is detected - done that way they are bound to fit as it predicts them but they are predictions. We can't go and look. The Lambda kludge changes have had to be used as more info comes in. Then other things need to be discovered, dark matter and energy for instance. All to make the theory fit what is actually observed...and through measurements using experiments such as LIGO, these disturbances have been detected and the speed of the propagation of the gravitational waves has been determined to be "c"