Is the speed of gravity the same as the speed of light?

Answer 1

At the moment we do not know.
It all depends on whether the theoretical "graviton" or gravity carrying particle has any mass.
if it is like the photon which has no mass then it will travel at the speed of light in a vacuum
but if it has a mass then it will not. Nothing with any mass can travel at the speed of light.
my gut feeling is that it wouldn't have mass but so many things in the subatomic word are amazingly counter-intuitive

Answer 2

If it doesn't, it comes darn close.

Like the answer above says, it depends on whether the graviton has mass. If the graviton has mass, it would cause a deviation from the 1/r^2 force law. We haven't ever observed this, so the graviton mass (if it exists) is pretty darn small. Therefore, the speed is typically going to be pretty much the speed of light.

A couple of similar cases are neutrinos and the photon itself. Neutrinos have only a teeny tiny mass and travel pretty much at light speed. As for the photon itself, we can't dogmatically say that it has no mass--only set an upper limit on it (which is very very tiny of course). Therefore, even light (and the E-M force) might not propagate at the speed of light. :)

Answer 3

Gravity creates a field or (more precisely a space-time deformation) that spreads outward at the speed light, but once it's out there, the field exerts its effect locally. If the gravitating body *moves*, the field perturbation propagates at the speed of light in the form of a gravity wave.

Answer 4

general relativity says almost - experiments a few years ago say exactly but are considered flawed ( still an open question )

wiki has a layman's explanation - speed of gravity

Answer 5

gravity is a force, it doesn't have a speed.

Answer 6

nope.they ain't the same

Answer 7

no.