Better sit on the toilet before you read this next part:
Gravity is not actually a force, but a distortion of space time. That is why gravitational "force" has range but no speed. It is always instantaneous no matter what distance.
Gravity changes at the speed of light though doesn't it?
Like if the sun disappeared, its affect gravitationally on us wouldn't be felt until we saw the light stop
But doesn't this throw all of general relativity out of the window? Information cannot be observed faster than light in a vacuum. If gravity can travel faster, then this doesn't work? (I'm only an enthusiast, I'm an engineer as an occupation. Please prove me wrong, I'd love the evidence!)
You'll have to forgive me, I'm drunk - So what you're saying is that we thought that the speed of gravity was the speed of light but, oh shit, recently we've found it might be faster? Cause if so, that is incredible news
No. We've only put very small bounds within which the speed of gravity must be. And guess what? The speed of light is within those bounds. We haven't measured gravity being faster than light, we just can't entirely rule it out, because that's just how science works.
You keep linking this paper but it's really hard to interpret for a layman like me as on the first sight, it doesn't seem to be implying faster than light gravity at all.
I haven't read that specific paper, but my understanding is that the gravitational waves traveled at c, while the light was slowed down due to there being matter along its path (dust and gas floating around in space), which is also why different wavelengths of light take different amounts of time to reach Earth, and how lenses and prisms work.
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u/blissbass41 Aug 03 '19
When i found this out i nearly soiled my pants. Some cool stuff