How fast does gravity travel???

[Dork Lard]

Me & the current Mrs Lord were treated to a very fine luncheon this afternoons by an old skool chum of mine who happens to be visiting his elderly mum from his base in California during this unusually combined period of sunny weather & Wimbledon tennis.

He's a f#kk1nG $billionaire, flew in on a private jet, stays in a 5* London Hotel, ignores me for 48hrs, then turns up on my doorstep with his entourage at 10.00hrs.

He's pushing some very nice salad around his plate with his fork while he's telling me "I own 1000's of patents, I've created drugs that have saved millions of lives & I did all of this because you once said "How fast does gravity travel".

I do remember that day in Mr. Valentines chemistry lab & I do remember the conversation that spawned me to ask the group "how fast does gravity travel"???

My $billionairre friend tells me that his quest to quench the thirst of his curiosity, began at the that very moment in time.

So, does DIYNOTs know how fast does gravity travels????

 

[transam]

Speed of light

 

[Astra99]

9.81 meters per second squared is the acceleration due to gravity. Light travels at 2.99 x 10^8 meters per second. For those who prefer the imperial system, that is 32 feet per second squared, and 9.81 x 10^8 feet per second

 

[opps]

Gravity doesn't travel. It attracts objects.

 

[opps]

9.81 meters per second squared is the acceleration due to gravity. Light travels at 2.99 x 10^8 meters per second. For those who prefer the imperial system, that is 32 feet per second squared, and 9.81 x 10^8 feet per second

That is the often quoted figure, and the one that I would quote but in reality, the further you get from sea level, the les that the gravitational force becomes. I have no idea how much less it is at sea level Vs the ionosphere but they wont be the same, and depending on the time of the day, you may find that the moon's gravitational field will reduce the earth's gravitation pull.


Just sayin'... let's not forget that the lump of rock orbiting our planet is responsible for tides.

 

[Justin Passing]

The speed of light. But it depends what you mean exactly, by the speed of gravity.

 

[RandomGrinch]

"c"*, but that doesn't really have much relevance to us mere mortals.
If we talk about spacetime, there are always more gravitational fields for an object to interact with.
For example, if the earth were to instantly disappear, the moon wouldn't just fly off at a tangent, it would be captured by the gravitational pull of the sun; in real terms, the speed of gravity has little to do with any physical outcomes.
...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.

 

[bernardgreen]

You will have to weight until the answer is found.

 

[RandomGrinch]

Perhaps Dork Lard wants to be Mass-ter of the universe?

 

[IT Minion]

Yet another Walter Mitty thread masquerading as a physics puzzle.

 

[johnny2007]

Gravity doesn't travel at any speed.
Objects attracted by gravity travel (or could even stay still if attracted equally by a system of gravitational fields in equilibrium)

 

[IT Minion]

Gravity doesn't travel at any speed.
Objects attracted by gravity travel (or could even stay still if attracted equally by a system of gravitational fields in equilibrium)

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.

 

[Munroast]

9.81 meters per second squared is the acceleration due to gravity. Light travels at 2.99 x 10^8 meters per second. For those who prefer the imperial system, that is 32 feet per second squared, and 9.81 x 10^8 feet per second

only on planet earth - and I'm never sure what planet Dork Lord is on

 

[ellal]

Perhaps Dork Lard wants to be Mass-ter of the universe?

Or the Master Bates of the universe?

 

[bernardgreen]

If you have space in you book case and time to read then start at LIGO

LIGO Lab | Caltech | MIT

The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) consists of two widely separated installations within the United States — one in Hanford Washington and the other in Livingston, Louisiana — operated in unison as a single observatory. LIGO is operated by the LIGO Laboratory, a...

www.ligo.caltech.edu