From: CurtAdams@aol.com
Date: Mon Sep 14 1998 - 10:55:36 MDT
maxm@maxmcorp.dk writes:
>It seems that space probes travelling through the solar system are not
>behaving according to the known law of gravity, puzzling scientists.
>http://www.bbcnews.org/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_168000/168410.stm
Not too long ago, somebody mentioned a theory of gravity where gravity
is transmitted by particles in such a way that over small scales
gravity was inverse square but over longer distances it dropped
linearly with distance.
The power of this is that it rather conveniently explains the synchro-
nized rotation of galaxies and the missing mass of the universe.
The proposed distance at which the inverse becomes dominant was several
parsecs, as I recall. Hence, it was supposed to be very difficult to detect.
However, it occurred to me that with the very
high precision of our measurements, we should be able to detect
increased gravity from the sun in the outer solar system. Inverse
square would be dominant, but inverse linear would have some effect.
This is exactly the reported effects. I would be interested in seeing
some quantitative comparisons of the observed effect to the inverse
linear hypothesis.
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