Global Warping by D. Trull Enigma Editor dtrull@parascope.com Critics and comic-book fans generally agree that the first Superman movie with Christopher Reeve is the greatest film treatment of a super-hero ever produced, even though there's that one scene that's just as dumb and silly as the nipples on George Clooney's rubber bat-suit. And no, it's not the cameo by Rex Reed. It's that part towards the end where Lois tragically dies, and the grief-stricken Man of Steel flies around and around the Earth so fast that he reverses the planet's rotation, which for some reason causes time to run backwards, so Lois miraculously comes back to life. What the hell was up with that? Assuming that a Kryptonian or a comparable force could make the world spin the other way, you might expect cataclysmic earthquakes and 20-mile-high tidal waves, but I don't think you'd be in for an instant replay of the day's events. The super-screenwriters were seriously wagging the dog if they thought the earth's rotation has any effect on what time it is. But now it turns out that this massively weak plot device may have been less of a causal fallacy than anyone ever realized. A recent study by NASA and an international team of researchers has found evidence that Earth's gravitational field is dragging space and time around itself as the planet rotates. This profound-sounding discovery is actually yet another in a long series of phenomena predicted in Einstein's general theory of relativity but left unconfirmed until decades later, as technology has gradually caught up with Albert's runaway brain. This breakthrough involves the first direct measurement of a previously hypothetical effect known that Einstein called "frame dragging," which derives from his belief that a spinning body can curve space. Frame dragging is also known as the Lense-Thirring effect, after a couple of Austrian physicists who theorized stars and other celestial bodies pull space in around them. (Careful, folks, don't fall asleep on me just yet! This is where it's starting to get cool, I promise!) Now, imagine if you will that the entire universe is completely filled with rich, buttery maple syrup. This is what the fabric of space-time is like. According to general relativity, small objects can move through the syrup causing little disruption, but a massive spinning object, like a giant waffle, will cause the thick, gooey goodness of space-time to flow around itself in the same direction. The spinning syrup might then ensnare small objects floating near the waffle, such as sausage links, and pull them along with the rotational distortion. By closely measuring the positions of the sausage links in the syrup flow, we may observe the effect of frame dragging. Mmm, waffles. So anyhow, if we substitute the Earth for the giant waffle and satellites for the sausage links, we might find ourselves in danger of actually understanding a crazy-ass Einstein theory for a moment or two. By precisely monitoring the orbits of two NASA satellites, a group of Italian and American scientists have, in short, felt a great disturbance in the syrup. LAGEOS (Laser Geodynamics Satellite) and LAGEOS II are laser-ranging satellites equipped with highly accurate signaling devices that enable scientists to measure the distance between them and the Earth's surface with near exactness. After studying the satellites' positions over the course of four years, the researchers discovered that the plane of their orbits had annually shifted about six feet in the direction if the Earth's rotation. Once they adjusted this figure for variations caused by gravity and tidal forces and whatnot, the team concluded that there was a still a degree of change in the orbits that could only be explained by a planetary syrup vortex. That's right, kids: frame dragging is real! The victorious research team reported on its findings in the journal Science, and the following is an excerpt from how they broke this startling discovery to the world: "This direct measurement of the Lense-Thirring effect confirms one of the remaining fundamental predictions of general relativity, that a current of mass-energy, such as a spinning mass, as a result of its mass motion changes the geometry of the universe by generating space-time curvature." Say what? Man, those scientist dudes can take an enormously fascinating topic and make it sound as flat and dead as a Kenny G album. So forget all the professor-babble and think about it: what we've got here is a space warp, a wrinkle in time, which is not floating around some distant quasar or hypothetical black hole, but encircling the Earth. All around us, everywhere you look, the fabric of reality is being subtly stretched and twisted by the mass of this big rotating hunk of rock we live on. Call me a geek, call me a weirdo, but I honestly think junk like that is cooler than hell. I suppose it might seem more exciting if I used frame dragging to explain the Bermuda Triangle or the Philadelphia Experiment, but what would be the point? I believe in candy-coating this kind of stuff with humor and imagination, with waffle physics and superfluous Superman lead-ins -- not with a load of make-believe crap. The world is plenty warped enough already. Sources: Reuters; special acknowledgement to the "bowling ball in molasses" analogy from Dr. Erricos Pavlis of the Joint Center for Earth System Technology, which has been immeasurably bastardized and wafflized herein. © Copyright 1998 ParaScope, Inc. Fortean Slips Index Fortean Slips message board: Share your views