berkeley lab
Berkeley Lab Physicist Challenges Speed of Gravity Claim
Albert Einstein may have been right that gravity travels at the same speed as light but, contrary to a claim made earlier this year, the theory has not yet been proven. A scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) says the announcement by two scientists, widely reported this past January, about the speed of gravity was wrong.Stuart Samuel, a participating scientist with the Theory Group of Berkeley Lab’s Physics Division, in a paper published in Physical Review Letters, has demonstrated that an “ill-advised” assumption made in the earlier claim led to an unwarranted conclusion.
Supernova Factory announces 34 supernovae in one year
The Nearby Supernova Factory (SNfactory), an international collaboration based at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, today announced that it had discovered 34 supernovae during the first year of the prototype system’s operation — all but two of them in the last four months alone. The announcement was made at the 201st meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Seattle. “This is the best performance ever for a ‘rookie’ supernova search,” said Greg Aldering of Berkeley Lab’s Physics Division, principal investigator of the SNfactory. “We have shown we can discover supernovae at the rate of nine a month, a rate other searches have reached only after years of trying.”