From: Eliezer S. Yudkowsky (sentience@pobox.com)
Date: Tue Jun 10 2003 - 13:19:37 MDT
Terry W. Colvin wrote:
> --- In forteana@yahoogroups.com, Barbara Barrett <barbarabarrett@o...> wrote:
>
>>Applying propigation of forces math to gravity to determine its "speed"
>>seems very silly to me. I'd liken it to someone asking what is the
>>velocity of the distance between say London and Manchester!
>>
>>Really I find it inconcievable how anyone could think of gravity as
>>having a "speed"; gravity is a by-product of mass acting upon spacetime,
>>so it's just "there"; it dosn't travel at any speed. It's spimply
>>convinient to think of it as a "force" even though it isn't really.
>
> Speed of gravity becomes important if (when) we ever figure out how
> to deflect or negate it, especially if the technology is going to be
> applied to large structures or machines. It's also important when
> using inertia modification techniques to reduce internal stresses in
> large devices moving at speed.
>
> The fact that "gravity" is (currently) an all-pervading force means
> that determining its speed of propagation is currently moot, but when
> you start monkeying about with it then speed of propagation becomes
> important. Heck, it could even turn out to be a bit like light on
> discworld and actually propagate very slowly, say at a brisk walking
> speed. Your "Mass acting upon spacetime" model is still just a
> theory. Gravity may have existed before the rest of the Universe was
> created, in which case it would have had plenty of time to spread
> itself about before everything else.
Terry, this is complete gibberish. Why are you forwarding it to the
Extropians list? As a cautionary tale?
-- Eliezer S. Yudkowsky http://singinst.org/ Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence
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