Together
with researchers from the USA and UK, Victor de Haan has submitted a research
proposal regarding gravitation. Gravitation is a force, everyone on the earth
has to deal with. Highly relevant information, such as: the actual source of
origin of gravitation, is still missing. Although several theories about the
origin exist, each one consists of diverse properties.
To discover more about this subject, one has to look at the effects of gravity
on a quantum system. This is what Victor and his colleagues are going to do. An
example of a quantum system is a neutron. A neutron is a very small package and
can be described in different ways: as a particle with mass or as a wave. To be
able to explain what exactly Victor and his colleagues are going to
investigate, a neutron will be compared to a spinning top:
Already conducted experiments on this subject, however not entirely accurate, seem to show that neutrons with a certain spin undergo a less fast acceleration, caused by gravity, than neutrons with an opposite spin. A spinning top can rotate in two directions: left and right (spin) and the gravitation also effects it. Imagine yourself throwing a spinning top in the air while it rotates left and another spinning top, with the exact same properties, while it rotates right. You might observe that the spinning top with the spin to the left, falls back slower to the ground than the one with the spin to the right. If the proposed measurements indeed show that this is the case (with neutrons), some of the existing theories about the origin of gravity become less plausible than others. This will eventually lead to a better understanding of the origin of gravity.
