It is a long held belief that the relationship between gravity and mass is inviolate. We know this to be true for the three states of matter, liquid, solid and gas. But plasma?
Might a high energy discharge produce a gravity fluctuation? In conversations with the few plasma physicists that I know, I am told that to the best of their knowledge no one has ever attempted to integrate a z-pinch with a gravimeter to see if it produced a positive or null result.

Has anyone here on this forum ever come across an experiment of this description?

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Update:
Today I had lunch with a very accomplished plasma physicist from a top university, and I had a chance to ask him if anyone had ever attempted to see if a gravimeter would respond to a Z-pinch or similar high energy plasma discharge.
He was sure that in his experience he had never heard of anyone performing such an experiment.
Why? He asked.
I suggested it might be worthwhile to see it there was a gravitational interaction, since the experiment seemed not to have occurred to anyone.
He smiled, shook his head and told me that anyone attempting such an experiment would put their reputation on the line, that publishing such a result - even if it were positive - without established theory backing up the experiment, would be tantamount to professional suicide.
Walking back to my car, I was grateful that H.C. Oersted's fortuitous accident of having a compass on the table while sending an electric charge through a copper wire, and his consequent observations, was approached in a bolder spirit.
The accidental discovery of the dye Phthalocyanine might be another example of a fortuitous moment.

So question has become: Has scientific method reached a level such that the above mentioned experiment cannot ever be carried out?

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Gravity is such a weak force that it would take an insanely large discharge in order for any fluctuations to be measurable.

Also, there are something like 9 or 11 different things which affect gravitational attraction, of which temperature is but one. If I'm not mistaken, charge is another.

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"Toward no crimes have men shown themselves so cold- bloodedly cruel as in punishing differences of belief." - James Russell Lowell

Hi mugaliens,

Yes, my plasma physicist friend did think measurement would be a considerable challenge due to the violent nature of the event, but I don't think he was ready to dismiss the idea as impossible.

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This plasma physicist would need a huge amount of proof that you were actually getting a real gravity change considering how much EM interference there would be on the sensors.

Add the weakness of gravity on top of that, and you would have a very small signal to noise ratio.

That all ignores the question of why you would feel the need to do this in the first place? Plasma isnt made up of anything different from anything else.

True, there are considerable challenges to the experiment, but are they insurmountable?

When electrons and protons are stripped from one another within a dynamo effect, they separate into like camps and contribute their individual field and charge, unifying the plasma. Of course, this condition lasts only fractions of a second before the burgeoning field shorts out of its man-made cage.
Our knowledge of this exotic state of matter is in its infancy.

My suggestion is in the spirit of H. C. Oersted's 1820's accidental experiment, where he discovered that a compass placed on the table registered movement when he induced a current through a wire.

Answering your question places this thread in danger of being moved to another topic, and it is only an opinion, but considering matter in such an exotic state, ought we not look and see if its relationship with gravity may be in a manner different from that of matter in its other three states?

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Well, this is roughly akin to performing random experiments. Professional scientists do not operate that way, that is why it is suicide.

You need to have a reason to do the experiment, i.e. a hypothesis. When it comes to gracity, virtually any hypothsis you come up with will be falsified by existing theory. For instance, there is already a hypothesis on the table regarding the mass of a proton and the mass of an electron. This is tested regularly with particle accelerators, which involve particles stripped from an atom. So there won't be much there.

I think if you "accidently" discover something yourself, then you will find it easier to get professional interest.

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The map is not the territory.-Korzybski

?

Plasma is quasi-neutral. It very much dosent 'separate into like camps'. Not only that, but when you add up the individual fields and charges, you end up with alot of very predictable behavoir. Behavoir that is quite well understood.

Our knowledge of this state of matter is not in its infancy. Plasma isnt exotic or really any different that any other state of matter. There is no reason to think that plasma behaves any differently with respect to gravity than there is reason to think that liquid behaves any differently.

Uh, stars are full of plasma and work just like rocks, in regard to gravity, eh? Or am I confused?

I would recommend any number of books to you by way of enhancing your knowledge on the subject, but perhaps the most readable is any book on plasma by Anthony Peratt. Enjoy.

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If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, how do you know there's a forest?

What part of the 'this plasma physicist' was hard to understand? I am more than a little familiar with the subject

That's what I'm asking.
Does gravity behave near plasma just like it does around rocks?
We've placed gravimeters near solids.
We've placed gravimeters near liquids.
We've placed gravimeters near gasses.
Has anyone placed a gravimeter near a high energy plasma?
If so, I'd like to know about it, that's all.

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Sorry, korjik. I did not mean to impune your reputation. I am sure you are very good at your job.

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If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, how do you know there's a forest?

Methinks this line should read:

My knowledge of this exotic state of matter is in its infancy.

Although Peratt has a lot of failings in his theories, he most certainly will not agree with you on your idea that:

Could you please tell me on which page he is explaining this?

Like Korjik said, there is NOTHING magical about plasma and it is very well understood. If you want I can give you a list of books showing how well plasmas are understood.

The only "gravity relation" that a plasma has is its mass, because gravity is created by mass. If you think that gravity has an electromagnetic component, then you have to come with very good arguments in the ATM section, where part of this notion has been discussed to death.

I think that if "high energy plasma" (but I have no idea what you mean by this term) would play a role in gravity than it would most certainly be measured by one group at my institute, which specifically measures the gravitational potential field with satellites circling the Earth.

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善數, 不用籌策 (shàn shù, bù yòng chóu cè)
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“A good scientist has freed himself of concepts and keeps his mind open to what is”
道德經, 二十七 (dào dé jīng, 27)

I thought it referred to the person gfellow had lunch with.

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Sorry, english idiom, it think.

My usage would be that the person gfellow had lunch with is that plasma physicist, and that then I would be this plasma physicist.

Thanks all for your input.
The answer seems to be that no one has come across any literature suggesting the placement of a gravimeter near a z-pinch.
Since it is a diversion from the initial query, I suggest that an in-depth discussion of plasma behavior belongs to another thread, another time.

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Based on the orbits of planets and moons around each other vs. around the sun, sure looks that way.

Hi gfellow. I came across this which might interest you....or from which you may have gotten your idea. These 2 guys seem to think z pinch can develop a gravitational 'emission". I don't put much confidence in it ...and it hasn't been pier reviewed...and I only briefed it slightly....They seem to think they have evidence that discharge in a high current "micro -pinch" cannot be explained electromagnetically, but requires a gravitational "emission" . Be careful, it treacherous reading.
... P.S. I have found that these types of 'anomalies' are almost always a result of misinterpreatation or mis-application known physics.....which appears to be the case here.

http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0809/0809.4855.pdf

G^2

Gsquare,

Thank you so much, I am indebted to you. It is just what I was looking for.
By the way, since he is mentioned in above threads, I thought I'd point out, google is celebrating H.C Oersted today.

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I don't know about moons. Due to repeated experimentation and observation, we can be fairly sure that the gravitational moment of solid, liquid and gas are inviolate, but the sun? It is a super-hot plasma and lots of it. Can we be sure it is not 'cheating'? Ought we not try to find out by measuring to see if there is a gravitational induction during a z-pinch?

Or should we just continue to assume?

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There is no assuming going on. The Sun behaves as it should if you take the quantities measured on Earth and scale them up to the size of the Sun.

The answer is: No, we should not do an error-filled technically difficult experiment to get information that is already known.

(bold added)

How "near" would you suggest?

There are, I would guess, thousands and thousands of gravimeters in use on (or "near") the surface of the Earth. There are also, I would guess, thousands of z-pinches in the same volume, over a given period (a day, say).

So the experiment has, without a doubt, been performed, likely thousands of times (albeit without the explicit knowledge of those taking readings from their gravimeters), over decades or more; AFAIK, no anomalies have been reported.

BTW, what would you consider the necessary conditions to be, for something to be called "a z-pinch"?

Close enough to measure in laboratory conditions?

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If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, how do you know there's a forest?

Think of it this way. You in a dark room where a man is talking to you. Suddenly the light comes on and all you see are a set of speakers, there is no man.
Might the Sun not behave as it should, yet still be able to induce gravity? How would one know?

This said, I would like to point out that my initial posting is a simple query asking if anyone knows if such an experiment had been performed. That is the intent of this posting. So far, it has yielded a reference for which I am grateful.
I am eager that this quest for information does not drift off topic and bring on the justifiable wrath of monitoring moderators.

Consequently, speculations as to why anyone should want to perform such an experiment probably belongs in another topic area.

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Which isn't very helpful, is it?

I mean, some extraordinarily sensitive tests of various theories of physics have been conducted outside labs; indeed, IIRC, gravimeters are part of one test (of General Relativity, and more) concerning the distance from Earth to Moon ... conducted in the lab which is the Earth-Moon system.

How about the "z-pinch"? What is it? How powerful does it have to be before it is considered (by you?) powerful enough to constitute a test (never mind where any gravimeter might, or might not, be)?

Perhaps a really, really powerful z-pinch can be tested over a distance of thousands of km, and a really powerful one over a distance of dozens of km, and a merely powerful one over a distance of a km or two, and ...?

I think someone, earlier in this thread, already mentioned that you need to have something a bit more precise than 'gravimeter near a z-pinch'; as you've worded your question, the test has undoubtedly been done, hundreds (or maybe even millions?) of times, just maybe not within the region of parameter space you seem interested in.

I would be most interested in any references relating to published gravitational measurements made in the vicinity of an artificially produced z-pinch, preferably under laboratory conditions. Gsquare found one which I am presently pursuing, perhaps there are others?

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If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, how do you know there's a forest?

For this analogy to be valid, it would be: You are in a dark room where a man is talking to you. You have electric and magnetic field sensors, you can feel around and determine what is the composition of what you feel (plastic, flesh, metal ...), you can take temperatures, and you can analyze the sound patterns in the room. As a matter of fact, you can do any measurement you want other than turn on a light.

Feeling around, you feel warm flesh in the area of the man speaking. Your finger got bit when you felt the area the noise came from. You detect no magnetic or electric fields other than that made by a man. You can hear two sources of breathing, one of which is you, and the other is coming from the area of the voice. This sound of breathing is accompanied by a motion of air that is slightly enriched in carbon dioxide. You can detect two heartbeats in the room, one of which is yours.

I could go on, but I wont.

The problem is that there are numerous ways in which the laws of physics interlock, and for one to change unexpectedly causes detectable effects in other quantities measured.

For the behavoir of the Sun, the first thing I would think of is that if plasma was affected by gravity differently, it would have a different density profile in the interior, and therefore would generate energy differently, creating an irreconcilable difference between theory and experiment. This dosent happen.

gfellow, I'm confused about one aspect of your question, and your continued non-answers to mine, about "z-pinches" isn't helping.

In the OP you ask "Might a high energy discharge produce a gravity fluctuation?" - that's a question about a high energy discharge (whatever you may mean by that).

Then, just a sentence later, you switch to z-pinches ("no one has ever attempted to integrate a z-pinch with a gravimeter").

In post#2 ("Update"), things change: "if a gravimeter would respond to a Z-pinch or similar high energy plasma discharge".

A bit later, you wrote this: "When electrons and protons are stripped from one another within a dynamo effect, they separate into like camps and contribute their individual field and charge, unifying the plasma. Of course, this condition lasts only fractions of a second before the burgeoning field shorts out of its man-made cage.
Our knowledge of this exotic state of matter is in its infancy." korjik responded by saying, essentially, that you don't seem to understand what a plasma is (and trying to set you straight); tusenfem likewise.

A further modification came afterwards: "Does gravity behave near plasma just like it does around rocks? [...] Has anyone placed a gravimeter near a high energy plasma?"

So what's so special about a z-pinch?

And what do you mean by "a high energy plasma"?

And why should it matter what energy a plasma has, in looking at whether a gravimeter has been placed near one or not?

It seems that you do have in mind some idea you want tested, but have rushed far too far ahead with deciding what test counts. Take this example: during a thunderstorm, there are lots and lots of high energy plasmas produced (lightning); many thunderstorms happen near where working gravimeters are located; so at least one variant of your question has been answered, in the sense of the 'experiment' having been performed.

Do you see the difficulty I'm having trying to work out what you're after?

As Jimi Hendrix once sang, "I know what I want, but I just don't know (how to go around gettin' it...")
Much like H.C. Oersted's experiment, how close was that compass to the electrical wires? How powerful was the induced electrical current?
I don't know.
I'm not sure what parameters are optimal when placing a gravity measuring device near a z-pinch, or what type of gravity detecting device one ought to use. Would any significant plasma discharge be effective?
I'll look at at any paper remotely associated with this kind of experiment, even a null result would be of interest to me.

So far I have been made aware of one experiment and paper discovered by Gsquare. The claimants tell me they see a positive result, their paper will be published in October in a peer reviewed journal.
Are there any other papers out there that anyone might be aware of?

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