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Pound-Rebka Experiment

Pound-Rebka Experiment. Experiment Background. Experiment done in 1959 at Harvard’s Jefferson laboratory to test Gravitational Red-Shift of light predicted by Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity. Background Information.

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Pound-Rebka Experiment

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  1. Pound-Rebka Experiment

  2. Experiment Background • Experiment done in 1959 at Harvard’s Jefferson laboratory to test Gravitational Red-Shift of light predicted by Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity

  3. Background Information • Principle of Equivalence states that the force of a gravitational field is equivalent to the acceleration of a given reference system. • From the Principle of Equivalence we can also conclude that any frequency shift in light produced by acceleration can also be produced by the appropriate gravitational field. This is like a relativistic Doppler shift.

  4. Experiment Set Up • 2 Light Sources- 1 on top of the 22.5 meter laboratory, 1 in the basement.

  5. Experiment Set Up • Hypothesized that the Gamma Rays emitted from basement would have a gravitational red shift and Gamma Rays emitted from the roof would have a gravitational blue shift. • Prepared the Gamma Ray detectors out of a combination of Iron and Cobalt heated to a high temperature to increase its sensitivity and resolution to red shift.

  6. Equations Used in Experiment • By using equations for gravitational potential energy and the relativistic energy expression, the gain in energy of a photon which falls a distance h is :

  7. Equations Used in Experiment • Difference in energy shifts from the 2 gamma ray emissions was predicted to be: • While it was measured as:

  8. Results • Basement emitted gamma ray of wavelength of 1 measured on roof as having wavelength of 1.000000000000002455 • Roof emitted gamma ray of wavelength 1 measured in basement as having wavelength of .99999999999999755

  9. Implications • The measured energy difference and gravitational shift was within the error margin of the predicted value by General Relativity • Experiment claimed as Proof of General Relativity

  10. Bibliography • “Harvard Gravitational Red Shift Experiment.” http://www.circlon-theory.com/HTML/poundRebka.html • “Equivalence Principle.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equivalence_principle • “Gravitational Red Shift.” http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/relativ/gratim.html

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