Tiny pendulum may reveal gravity’s secrets

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Gravity is, at heart, a mystery. Yes, we can talk about curvature of space-time and perhaps make analogies with stretched rubber sheets. But we don't know why mass causes space-time to curve.

To put it another way, in our theory of gravity, matter is the scenery and space-time is both cast and stage crew. But matter's behavior is described by quantum mechanics, which takes space and time as a given. For quantum mechanics, space and time are the stage in which matter puts on the best show ever. How do we get these two theories to put on just one play?

Perhaps this is why the two theories simply do not get on-no show can have two lead actors, right? We may finally get to find out thanks to a new experimental device that may make it possible for both gravity and quantum mechanics to play lead roles.

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