NIST physicists propose new gravity test at microscopic scales
Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have proposed a new experiment to test gravity’s behavior at unprecedentedly short distances – on the scale of a few millionths of a meter. This would allow scientists to explore whether gravity behaves differently at very close ranges, where electromagnetic forces often dominate.
The proposed experiment would involve suspending a small glass bead in a laser beam “bottle,” allowing it to move back and forth within the bottle. The motion of the bead would be extremely sensitive to the forces around it, including the gravity of a nearby heavy object. This would permit testing of gravity’s effects on particles separated by 1/1,000 the diameter of a human hair, potentially allowing Newton’s law to be tested with a sensitivity 100,000 times better than existing experiments.
The experiment could take a few years to realize, as the team faces challenges with friction and background gas in the chamber. However, the researchers believe that getting the idea in front of the scientific community could lead to other useful experiments and instruments.
Keywords: Levitation, Microspheres, Friction, Gravity, Precision
