The And soo, Hello and

welcome. It's Tuesday the 28th of July 2009 and you're listening to Skeptics with a K, the

podcast for science reason and critical thinking. Skeptics with a K is produced by the Merseys

Skeptics Society, a non-profit organisation dedicated to the promotion of scientific

skepticism on Merseys around the UK and internationally. I'm your host Michael

with me today is Michael Marshall. and Colin Harris hello so guys what's been

going on this week well one thing's been going on this week we had a total

solar eclipse on the 22nd which is predicted to be the largest

so that the clubs will have this century I don't think it lasted a full five minutes

that was in China wasn't it yeah it you can see in India and China but China

specifically were very interested in it because they had six sites set up all

away from Tibetan Plateau to a cave in a Shanghai suburb, basically observing and

tracking this eclipse with the specific intention of measuring the effect on

gravity if there is one on gravity, which is a bit strange.

It's quite a controversial thing in science this.

Most scientists in the West don't believe that there's any effect on gravity in an eclipse but the

Chinese been quite keen on this for a while and it's been I think 20 eclipse the

last 20 eclipses I think they've had experiments but none of them have been

Conclusive in any way I can't see how it would I mean I can see how I can see how I mean I can see how I suppose if you'd have the sun's gravity and the moon's gravity aligned then you get the

pull from both of them in the same direction that would but that would be a very

minor effect I would have thought you know have the any kind of any theories on why it would have any effect at all?

They do I think they're all sitting on them at the moment because they don't want to

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