would happen if the apple tree was twice as high. Here he again expected the apple to be accelerated toward the ground and pick up even more speed. Thus, he concluded that the force gravity would reach to the top of the tallest apple tree.” Timken paused for a minute and grabbed a cup of coffee that had been poured for him.
He continued enthusiastically, “I realize this might not sound like one of those eureka moments, but you must understand, it’s what Newton did with this knowledge that counts. His brilliant conclusion was that if the force of gravity reached to the top of the highest tree, should it not reach even further; in fact, might it not reach all the way to the Moon! Then, the orbit of the Moon about the Earth could be a consequence of the gravitational force, because the acceleration due to gravity could change the velocity of the Moon in just such a way that it followed an orbit around the Earth.”
Timken drew a picture of the Earth-Moon system on the board and exclaimed, “Eureka!” and continued with his presentation.
“Newton figured out that every object in the universe attracts every other object in the universe with a force directed along the centers of the two objects that is proportional to the product of their masses and is inversely proportional to the square of the distance between the two objects.”
With this said, he labeled the Moon, M1 and the Earth, M2, then drew a line between them and labeled it r.
Timken continued, “Thus, one of the most famous and universally accepted formulas was born.” He again picked up the marker and wrote down the famous Newtonian Equation.
F=G (M1 x M2) / R2
By pointing to big G, he concluded his lecture stating, “Where big G equals the Universal Gravitational Constant.” He continued to write out the value for G on the board.
6.67300 × 10-11 m3 kg-1 s-2.
Timken put the marker down and pointed to the formula, “This strange looking number followed by these weird series of units is termed a "universal constant" because it is thought to be the same at all places and all times, and, thus, universally characterizes the intrinsic strength of the gravitational force.”
Everyone just stared at the board for a minute or two. Dr. Timken sat back down.
Colonel Snyder spoke up, “Wow, how’d you remember the value for big G. I can’t even remember my own Social Security number half the damn time.”
Dr. Timken continued his lecture by pointing out that, “Just like the value for Pi is a known constant that is used in countless formulas and calculations. And just like Einstein’s famous and inspirational equation E=MC2 equating mass and the speed of light, to energy; Newton’s Gravitational Formula is the glue that holds the heavens together.”
Dr. Rapp spoke up this time, “However, there is a caveat. Notice that big G only has three significant places past the decimal point. For a very universal constant it is one of the least known numbers in terms of accuracy. In contrast, Pi is a known constant out past a million decimal places. The natural log e is another magic number and constant in science and mathematics. It is also known out to millions of decimal places. I can recall 22 decimal places for the natural log e. It is 2.718281828459045235.”
Everyone looked at the doctor like he was the mystical Karnack the Great. He calmly said, “Okay, I do that at the faculty Christmas parties to impress the chicks. All that I have to do is memorize the equivalent of three telephone numbers and string them together.”
Dr. Timken now proceeded to wrap up the lecture. “We’re not here to improve the accuracy of big G. We’re here to prove that the constant is not constant. We’re going to blow Newtonian physics out of the water. As a matter of fact, this has implications in both relativistic and quantum physics as well.”
Colonel Snyder jumped in, “Whoa, slow down a bit. You’re getting in over my head now. What are you talking about?”
Sheridan spoke up now. It was time to put his $50,000 engineering degree out on the table. “From what I understand, Colonel, if the constant is not a constant, then there is a delta possible. This difference, or delta as it is known mathematically, allows for some interesting recalculations. If you acknowledge that G is not constant, then you can throw things like negative numbers in for mass and time into Einstein’s relativity equations and quantum physics equations. It then becomes possible to exceed the speed of light which would no longer be constant. Theoretically, time travel would even be possible both forward and backward.”
Colonel Snyder looked at Dave and said, “Holy shit, Captain. I thought you were up here because there was some targeting glitch with our ICBMs and our satellites keep taking a left hook worse than my tee shot. Now you’re talking about H.G. Wells’ time machine crap. Hell, even I can figure out that the constant is accurate to within plus or minus a few hundredth of a percent. That’s not enough to account for antimatter and time warps.”
Before Dave could recover from the frontal assault, both professors came to his defense. Dr. Rapp simply held up his hands and said, “Eureka! You’ve got it Colonel, the Captain is essentially correct. You’d be surprised what the supercomputers show is possible over galactic distances and eons with this small inconsistency. This is going to revolutionize science and physics. Humanity is at the dawn of an earth-shattering revelation that the Universal Gravitational Constant is not a constant and thus not universal. The implications are just now being understood! Welcome to the threshold of the brave new world.”
“Okay, Professors, you’ve definitely piqued my interest. Now please tell me how drilling a few holes into the world’s largest ice cube is going to prove your case?”
Dr. Rapp spoke up, “Well, I’m glad you have an open mind and haven’t thrown us out on our asses in the snow. It’s damn cold out there. What we plan to do out at DYE-3 is drill five holes about four miles apart. These holes will be about eight inches in diameter and two kilometers deep. We’ll then drop a LaCoste & Romberg borehole gravity meter down the holes and measure the gravity about every eight hundred feet or so.”
Colonel Snyder asked. “What the heck is a gravity meter?”
Dr. Rapp explained patiently, “A gravity meter consists of a weight on the end of a horizontal beam supported by a zero-length spring. A zero-length spring is defined as one in which the tension is proportiona1 to the actual length of the spring, that is, if all external forces were removed the spring would collapse to zero length. The gravity meter can detect very small changes in gravity by measuring the restoring force necessary to bring the horizontal beam to a reference position. It is important to note that the instrument does not measure the total force of gravity, only changes in gravity.”
Dave asked, “What’s the status of the drilling at DYE-3?” Dr. Timken answered, “We have two drills delivered at the site and have started drilling with one. We have enough pipe to drill about halfway down. This is our biggest logistics tail. We need about 350 lengths of 20 foot long pipe. Also, once we reach bedrock under the icecap we are going to take some core samples with a diamond core drill bit. Nobody really knows what’s down there.”
Colonel Snyder picked up a folder off his desk, “I have the manifest here for the two support flights out to the DYE-3 site in the morning. I see a bunch of pipe, some instrumentation, core hole lubricant,…..that sounds kinky,….and other instruments and equipment on the two planes. Captain, you’ll be on Raven One that leaves at 0730. Professors, you’ll leave about an hour later on Raven Two.”
Dr. Timken concluded the meeting by saying, “Thank you for your help and interest in this project.
