Physicists propose new quantum device to measure how Earth twists space-time
A proposed tabletop quantum sensor could match the precision of the best satellite measurements of frame dragging, a subtle effect predicted by Einstein's general relativity.
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Scientists have proposed a new tabletop device to detect the subtle way Earth's daily spin on its axis twists the space-time around it — an effect predicted by Einstein's general relativity.
If built, the sensor could measure the quantum effect known as frame dragging with the same precision as the best satellite experiments, but in minutes instead of years, the researchers proposed in a new study.
The research, published Sept. 17 in the journal Physical Review Letters, aimed to address a classic mismatch in physics. Picture a ring of clocks bolted to a spinning merry-go-round. You synchronize each clock with its neighbor around the ring. Then, you compare the last clock with the first. They don't match.
"It is impossible to synchronize that collection of clocks when you're in a rotating frame," Kai-Isaak Ellers, a physics graduate student at the University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley) and first author of the study, told Live Science.
Taken from Live Science's own summary of the story.
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