A Magical Total Eclipse? Chinese Team to Test If Eclipse Can Bend Gravity

Millions of people in Asia see the longest total solar eclipse this century today. As swaths of India and China are plunged into darkness, Chinese researchers will be conducting conduct a once-in-a-century experiment to test a controversial theory: the possibility that gravity drops slightly during a total eclipse. As well as proving that you can give people as many gravitometers as you like, it doesn't mean they have the first notion of what gravity is.  Civilizations have assigned incredible (and unbelievable) properties to one rock happening to line up with another for millenia, and it seems that a lab coat doesn't make you immune to the idiocy.

Geophysicists from the Chinese Academy of Sciences are preparing an unprecedented array of highly sensitive instruments at six sites across the country from observatories on the Tibetan plateau to a cave in a Shanghai suburb to take gravity readings during the total eclipse due to pass over southern China today. The results, the team believes which will be analyzed in the coming months, could confirm once and for all that anomalous fluctuations observed during past eclipses are real.

The first sign that gravity fluctuates during an eclipse was in 1954 when Maurice Allais noticed erratic behavior in a swinging pendulum when an eclipse passed over Paris.

The idea is that during a solar eclipse gravity is affected, causing pendulums to swing differently during the period of darkness.  Let us just repeat that (in case you've been trained in science and shut it out to protect yourself): people say that when light from the sun is blocked by the moon, an orbiting rock which is ALWAYS around the Earth, there's suddenly a magical gravity-bending field which can only be observed by very pendulum experiments.  These people are given money.

What are they saying: that gravity is powered by sunshine?  That the Moon gets nervous with all the attention and starts some extremely-specific sorcery to distract us?  That maybe, just maybe, humankind has engaged in everything from panic to human sacrifice every time the sun seems to go out and this is the latest (and hopefully last) incarnation before science education wipes it out?

The effect was first "observed" as we mentioned above in the fifties by Monsieur Maurice Allaise, who won the Nobel Prize in Economics.  Yes, economics.  Somehow similar experiments which didn't see these effects, conducted in the nineties with better equipment and by full time scientist Dr Kuusela, never seem to get as much press.  And once people start talking about inaccurate observations, thermal effects, observer bias and pure wishful thinking, well, proponents of the magic moonbending tend to cover their ears and declare the results "controversial."  As opposed to "utterly disproven, you idiots."

The biggest warning sign in reports of the occurrence is a direct correspondence with the visible eclipse.  We're talking "vertical lines on the reported graph" correspondence - not curves, not increases, vertical jumps in the data as soon as the eclipse starts.  Even if there were an unexplained gravitational effect, for it to so directly correspond doesn't just beggar belief: it beggars trigonometry and the laws of physics.  Take the size of the moon, the sun, the distances between them and work out the angles between "eclipsing" and "not eclipsing" - they make fun of any kind spatial relationship.  If there's a physical law that works like that, it's been biding it's time rather than generating incredible spikes in every structure and machine on Earth every time the Moon passed by.

Modern eclipse-worshippers have traded robes for lab coats, however, and thanks to Google can throw around terms like "Pioneer Anomaly" - the unexplained acceleration of the Pioneer probe as it travels through the solar system.  You might have noticed that the Pioneer probe isn't near the moon, and is in fact an entirely different thing only brought in here to trigger credibility.

The most recent experiment is scheduled for this Wednesday, using an array of gravitometers and pendulums spread over China, and will hopefully put paid to this pseudo-stuff once and for all.

Luke McKinney

Eclipse Worship Experiment http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17481-july-eclipse-is-best-chance-to-look-for-gravity-anomaly.html

Comments

[J Stachebocks]

This site definitely is getting out the sarcasms lately.

Here I was hoping to read about magic moon powers, but to no avail.

Maybe nothing is activated when the eclipse starts - but perhaps the moon some how interferes or blocks the normal pull of gravity from the sun.

Though if there was an effect, it seems like it would have a gradient rather than sudden element.

And hey, who cares if Chinese scientists want to spend some bucks 'sciencing' this theory. Isn't that the point? And besides their economy has been quite robust, and it seems like a good idea for nations of prosperity to cover these bases.

[Narendra Nath]

Fluctuations in gravitational strengths are possible even without the ecclipse, as the orbits of all celestial bodies do fluctuate about the most probable mean orbit. It is the change in this magnitude that may occur during the geometry of the Solar ecclipse. The results would be interesting to see. Wish that similar experiments are tried elsewhere too, so that results could be corroborated, an essential feature of any scientific experiment before one gives the credence to the same!

[R. Gates]

Not sure what Mr. McKinney's general creditials are for writing this article, but it seems his bias and certainty that there is nothing to these anamolies has clouded his reasoning. Even today, not one physicist can tell you exactly what gravity is, and futhermore, it seems they can't tell you what the mysterious substance is that seems to make up the majority of the universe is made of-- i.e. dark matter and dark energy.

For twenty years I've been reviewing every written report and study on the gravitational and other anamolies associated with solar eclipes, and to brush them off so easily, is ignorant to say the least. You might want to do a little more research on this subject Mr. McKinney, and if you're truly capable of comprehending the volumes of true scientific research, you might be more reserved in your judgment on this topic.

I would be willing to bet (again, based on my decades of studying the subject) that the results from the China eclipse experiments of 2009 will only serve to heighten this mystery, as the results will indicate that gravity doesn't behave exactly like we think it should, as we don't fully understand gravity and won't until we understand dark matter and dark energy, and that understanding is still of few revolutions in physics away...

R. Gates

[Tim Seitz]

A Magical Total Eclipse? Chinese Team to Test If Eclipse Can Bend Gravity
http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2009/07/gravity-bending-magic-eclipsea-continent-wide-experiment-later-this-week-will-test-whether-total-eclipses-can-affect-gravity.html

After reading this article by Mr. Luke McKinney, I have to ask; Mr. Luke McKinney, are you threatened by the fact that the Chinese thought of this experiment first? Science is not a matter of one's cultural bias, sentiments and idolatries that one brings to his/her research.
The data gathered here today may well show the limitations of Mr. Newton's Celestial Mechanics and move our minds beyond the tyranny of his mathematical prescriptions.
I don't find that so unsettling, why do you?
Do you know how many years it took Mr. Newton to refine the 'fudge factor' g in his famous equation?
With our enhanced data gathering techniques of observation we are still refining that 'fudge factor' g contained in Sir Isaac's last mathematical prescription.
That process and what the Chinese are doing today is in the spirit of science.
Not the "psuedo-stuff" you allege it to be.
Get used to it.
T.S.

[Ivar Nielsen]

Without immediately disputing the Newton and Einstein laws of gravity, I’ll say: Of course there are some anomalies when eclipse meetings take place. The hypothesis is always the easiest bit: We are talking of “gravity shading effects” here.

But the explanations are not that easy:

1. We live in a galaxy which is “compressed” by extragalactic forces via the galactic bow chock as the galaxy moves.
2. Within our galaxy we have a pushing force going outwards in the surroundings and push the Solar System outwards from the galaxy center.
3. From our Sun we also have a pushing force via the Solar Wind.
4. The orbital movement of the Earth also makes a pressing bow chock on the Earth atmosphere.

These 4 forces keep the relative balance in our Solar system. Relative because the actual Earth pushing force can be affected by all these forces, depending of the actual Earth orbit position.

Beside this, there is of course all kind of “shading effect possibilities” when it come to the interaction between the Earth and the Moon and the other planets in our Solar system.

Now, when the Moon shades for the Solar wind, it also shades the Earth from the outgoing pressure of the Sun. This should of course give a lesser pressure on the Earth locations during the Moon shading period.

As a curiosum, the pushing force from within our Galaxy and the pushing force for the Sun, also explains the Pioneer Space Craft speed anomaly: When the pushing force from the Sun on the spacecrafts is decreasing when leaving the Solar System, the spacecrafts meets the increasing force from our Galaxy which creates a braking effect “in the direction of the Sun” as it is said.

- But what does my explanation here then mean for the orthodox gravity understanding? I’ll just say this: God bye to both Newton and Einstein and thanks for your contributions on the road to grasping the laws of our Cosmos. You did of course your best, but it was not sufficient enough to explain the most simplest and natural things.

Ivar Nielsen
Natural Philosopher
www.steady-state-universe.net/#The_Maurice_Allois_Effect

[Humza Meem]

You're a very angry person, and honestly, worse than the people who uphold idiotic superstitions with regards to eclipses - why? You chuck your ranting and raving against testing claims on behalf of science itself. And to think, you have the audacity to call these scientists magicians because a study already exists on this topic (you invoke that of Kuusela and company). If Kuusela himself heard you and was not such a kind-hearted person, he'd have you crucified.

(A) This study by the Chinese is going to replicate Kuusela's experiment on a wider scale. I ask, what is the problem with that? The only defense against dogma is replication and you are a living proof of the need for replication.

(B) Kuusela, who's study you ignorantly cited, proposes that gravity could have many as yet unstudied and unearthed factors. Unlike your ignorant ass, he didn't dogmatically dismiss them or call himself the end of research on the matter.

(C) You joked about (supposing this effect is real) us not knowing how it comes about. You suggested that it borders, or constitutes, lunacy as it would imply that a proportionally smaller mass aligned with the source of light some how affects gravity. The point of this experiment isn't do demonstrate exact causality. It's to see if there is indeed a link - simple, not how it comes about. I know when you walk into a lab, the first thing you think about is proving a pre-established notion - that isn't the case with science, sorry.

Nobody else here wants to be frank, but I do: You sir, are a douche bag.

[Basuto9]

Luke, Luke, Luke: You're the one who is always FOR scientific testing, experiments, etc., and YOU'RE the one who usually complains about people who DON'T want or believe the testing. From what I read, the Chinese are making a scientific experiment, nothing more, nothing less. So they show an eclipse DOESN'T affect gravity. OK. How is this wrong? Could it be you're afraid their results might be different and in conflict with what you believe? OK. So what? Maybe a few years down the road someone will do this experiment again? So? Try to just report these stories a little less dispassionately, OK? It would make reading them less of a chore.

[Joe C]

Yes, totally obvious and stupid experiment, just like dropping different weights off a tower to see which fell faster. Everyone knows the heavier object will fall faster. Duh!

Oh wait...

I agree that the likelihood of any kind of gravitic anomaly showing up is low to the point that I'd probably bet a million bucks against it. However, that's no reason not to try the experiment. Experimentation is the very essence of science. Why not try it? I for one look forward to having a solid, final nail in the coffin of this notion...but WHAT IF?! I know it's impossible, and stupid, but WHAT IF...it would be huge and would revolutionize our understanding of gravity. Surely it's worth an experiment either way.

[Narendra Nath]

Some of the comments made appear harsh. Scientific investigations require freedom of approach, an open and curious mind that plans an experiment in a logical way. Unless details are available from the Chinese side, supprt or criticism appears premature. Science has thrown many surprising wonders. Universe is the way it is, science has not created it and so it does not deal with 'why's'. It only attempts to understand ' how' the things work and what constitutes matter and energy in the universe. Nothing more and nothing less.

[Leo Heimburger]

I am waiting on reports from the Chinese of their latest observations.

The anomaly, if detected, is very easily explained. Everyone appears to have forgotten their junior high school physics.

[Humza Meem]

The Chinese scientists have been conducting this series of themed-experiments for a while. I didn't have the luxury of being old enough to have been alive while each one was taking it's course, but there results with the increases in funding and the introduction of more and more reliable tools have been quite interesting and the implications it would have for quantum physicists, and even what it would mean for traditional macroscopic approaches is enormous.

http://www.eclipse2006.boun.edu.tr/sss/paper03.pdf

[Eric]

Seriously, what is wrong with all of you? @ Ivar, you have no idea what you're talking about, go take a class on physics. To the author of this article, this experiment has nothing to do with the bending of gravity, or the reduction of gravity, or that light and gravity are in any way related. This is simply an experiment to measure the change in apparent gravity when two massive bodies align. If you remember anything about physics, this effect is not surprising, in fact, it occurs whenever the moon OR the sun is above you in the sky. You actually weigh less at noon than at midnight due to the small gravitational gradient from the sun. If you add another massive body into the equation (i.e. the moon) the effect is even greater, and yes it would slightly change the periods of pendulums which is ENTIRELY DEPENDENT on gravity.