Gravimeter experiment
- From: Leigh Palmer <palmer@SFU.CA>
- Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2001 10:56:00 -0800
Title: Gravimeter experiment
I see now that I did not post the reference I alluded to in
my
last post. Sorry for the confusion.
The paper that got me interested in doing an experiment was
done
by a Chinese group in 1997 and published last year as a Rapid
[!]
Communication in Phys Rev D:
"Precise measurement of gravity variations during a total
solar
eclipse", by Wang et al., PHYSICAL REVIEW D, VOLUME 62, 041101(R)
"The variations of gravity were measured with a high
precision
LaCoste-Romberg D gravimeter during a total solar eclipse
to
investigate the effect of a solar eclipse on the
gravitational
field. The observed anomaly (7.0 +/- 2.7)x!0^(-8) m/s^2
during
the eclipse implies that there may be a shielding property
of
gravitation."
My son David pointed me to this unbelievable result, and I
had
located a suitable Scitex instrument and considered doing
an
observation this Christmas day, but Vancouver is poorly
situated
to abserve the Sun's gravity at that time with a vertical
component
measuring instrument (the Sun was on the horizon, more or
less).
If there is someone in Christchurch, NZ, who is interested
in
looking into this please get in touch with me. There is
another
opportunity coming up very soon.
Leigh