Going Beyond Einstein: Spacetime Wave Orbits Black Hole

Black holes may actually drag the fabric of space and time around them as they spin, creating waves for cosmic material to surf on, astronomers say.
www.stuff.co.nz...

San Diego, CA--Astronomers Jon Miller (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics) and Jeroen Homan (MIT) have seen evidence of hot iron gas riding a ripple in spacetime around a black hole. This spacetime wave, if confirmed, would represent a new phenomenon that goes beyond Einstein's general relativity.
www.cfa.harvard.edu...

i was under the impression that we knew all this or was it still theory up till now. (then again i read alot of scifi so i may have lost touch with events again). so how does this affect current theorys on spacetime?

Originally posted by armorris
i was under the impression that we knew all this or was it still theory up till now. (then again i read alot of scifi so i may have lost touch with events again). so how does this affect current theorys on spacetime?

I would say that effect of this is very small, theories have long included that big rotating mass should cause "rotation" of space itself near that mass.

And that rapid movement of big mass should also cause gravity waves to space which are like ripples in water when something disturbs water.

Here's good page and it was Einstein who first predicted gravity waves.
www.physicscentral.com...


archive.ncsa.uiuc.edu...


Here's site of one project to search for gravity waves.
www.ligo.caltech.edu...


And about other project
www.space.com...

The idea of gravity waves dates to 1916 when Albert Einstein developed his theory of general relativity about the forces in the universe...

[edit on 12-1-2005 by E_T]