Gravity probe?

Interesting paper, but a little dry and inconclusive.
"Analysis of the data from all four gyroscopes results in a geodetic
drift rate of -6,601.8+/- 18.3 mas/yr and a frame-dragging drift rate
of -37.2 +/- 7.2 mas/yr, to be compared with the GR predictions of
-6,606.1 mas/yr and -39.2 mas/yr, respectively (`mas' is
milliarc-second; 1mas = 4.848 x 10-9 rad). "

So ... why the 4.3 mas/year discrepancy in geodetic frame drift rate
and 2.0 mas/year discrepancy in frame-dragging drift rate? Systematic
errors? Error bars? Flaws in GR?


Did you even read the paper, or just skim the abstract?

A mere
confirmation of GR to within the limits of confidence in the data
constrained by the engineering of the machine? In short, GP-B was a
failure?

Confirming a prediction of GR now counts as failure?

Did you even read the paper, or just skim the abstract?

Both, why?

Because several of your questions were answered in the paper.

Confirming a prediction of GR now counts as failure?

Yes, insofar as it advances the scientific base very little, gains us
no new physics, doesn't allow us a new technology like the WWWeb and
costs us a satellite and some man-years of highly educated scientists
and trying-to-get-educated PHD students.


Oh, the horror, those poor Ph. D. students who had to work on a FAILED
mission, one that gave the best verification of GR to date! They'll
never get jobs now with that stain on their resume.

On Sat, 03 May 2014 00:03:53 +0100, John wrote:

On Fri, 2 May 2014 20:09:52 +0000 (UTC), Greg Hennessy
wrote:

On 2014-05-02, wrote:
What happened to Gravity Probe B, the Stanford
experiment to test GR? They sent their detector
into orbit 3 years ago, but since then, no word.
Anybody here connected to that?

Could be prime grist for the conspiracy intellectuals -

The final results were released in May 2011. The results were
published in Physical Review Letters.

A copy can be found at http://arxiv.org/abs/1105.3456

Cool, thank you for this. I managed to miss the results and I forgot
to look for them.
Interesting paper, but a little dry and inconclusive.
"Analysis of the data from all four gyroscopes results in a geodetic
drift rate of -6,601.8+/- 18.3 mas/yr and a frame-dragging drift rate
of -37.2 +/- 7.2 mas/yr, to be compared with the GR predictions of
-6,606.1 mas/yr and -39.2 mas/yr, respectively (`mas' is
milliarc-second; 1mas = 4.848 x 10-9 rad). "

So ... why the 4.3 mas/year discrepancy in geodetic frame drift rate
and 2.0 mas/year discrepancy in frame-dragging drift rate? Systematic
errors? Error bars? Flaws in GR?

The passage you quote shows the discrepancy is within the error bars.

On Friday, May 2, 2014 10:12:55 AM UTC-7, wrote:
What happened to Gravity Probe B, the Stanford

experiment to test GR? They sent their detector

into orbit 3 years ago, but since then, no word.

Anybody here connected to that?


Could be prime grist for the conspiracy intellectuals -

--

Rich

They ran out of public loot, and once again managed to not advance nor improve anything.