Re: Gravity Probe B

On a sunny day (Mon, 16 Apr 2007 14:03:16 -0500) it happened Andy Resnick
<andy.resnick@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in <f00dlg$dfk$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>:

"Two important discoveries were made while analyzing the gyroscope data
from the spacecraft: 1) the ?polhode? motion of the gyroscopes damps out
over time, and 2) the spin axes of the gyroscopes were affected by small
classical torques."

I mean seriously, how can we, the community of physicists and other
scientists, expect that the public will continue to fund our salaries?
How are we supposed to excite the next generation of physicists?


Hey, wait a minute, look up tha tsite again (and press 'reload' in your browser:

http://einstein.stanford.edu/

quote:
Today, Everitt and his team are poised to share what they have found so
far-namely that the data from the GP-B gyroscopes clearly confirm Einstein's
predicted geodetic effect to a precision of better than 1 percent. However,
the frame-dragging effect is 170 times smaller than the geodetic effect, and
Stanford scientists are still extracting its signature from the spacecraft
data. The GP-B instrument has ample resolution to measure the frame-dragging
effect precisely, but the team has discovered small torque and sensor
effects that must be accurately modeled and removed from the result.

end quote

So it seems to me they are doing great mathematical art to get rid of
the errors.
Different from giving up and saying: 'Experiment failed', they try to
really get some data.

Now that is persistence and science I like.

OTOH I find it increadibly stupid that they had no clue their balls would
behave like classical mechanics predicted 100 years ago....
hehe

But overcome that one.... they could not test in space (space station? well I dunno).

But nice work so far.
.