From: Anders Sandberg (asa@nada.kth.se)
Date: Fri May 28 1999 - 05:26:21 MDT
Darin Sunley <umsunley@cc.umanitoba.ca> writes:
> > Unfortunately, there are no simple sensors directly measuring
> > spacetime curvature...
>
> Wouldn't Robert Forward's Mass Detector work? Space time curvature is
> equivalent to mass is it not?
Yes, it measures space-time curvature. If I remember my
MisnerThorneWheeler right, you can calculate the components of the
local metric tensor by having three orthogonal mass detectors (or
should there be more? there are ten independent components).
> As an aside, are we attempting to detect spacetime curvature due to mass, or
> other types of spacetime curvature? (ARE there any other types of spacetime
> curvature, and wouldn't they be equivalent to mass?)
You can have curvature without any mass, gravitational waves are a
good example. But the equivalence principle essentially says that
acceleration is acceleration, regardless of the cause.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Anders Sandberg Towards Ascension!
asa@nada.kth.se http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/
GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/* f+ g+ w++ t+ r+ !y
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Fri Nov 01 2002 - 15:03:51 MST