Gravitational waves from black holes detected
- Thread starter marshalex
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It's pretty mind blowing that Mr Einstein theorised this a century ago.
There is that potential as part of this assuming that dark matter has a gravitational wave signature that can be detected. We've only scratched the surface with this discovery so the more research and tech that goes into it, who knows what else they'll find
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He was a clever chap that Einstein
Indeed. I love how his "theory of everything" is still holding after nearly 100 years. And the bits we haven't yet proved still check out theoretically with what we now know, which he didn't know at the time.
to be fair there was someone else who he only just beat into publishing it and if either of them didn't do it, someone else would have got there a few years later.
I get the R&D thing, but for the sake of argument, just assume they exist without detecting them, are you likely to build a GW telescope tomorrow anyway. No, it's got to the point where science is so flipping hard that you have to build a billion dollar machine to prove one little thing cause you won't get your billion dollars to make your next machine wihtout it.
Do you see my point, there are no more garden shed inventors, like the telescope builders of the past etc. Imo we have come to a giant great big wall, and I don't see us getting past it anytime soon.
There will be no star trek.
This is only true because we're on the cutting edge of science with stuff like this. Whenever you meet the cutting edge of *anything* the task is incredibly complicated and fraught with pit falls that could cost billions. We use lots of things these days in everyday life which 100 years ago would have blown peoples minds, people who would have been saying the same as what you are now - for instance with the humble microprocessor.
I get the R&D thing, but for the sake of argument, just assume they exist without detecting them, are you likely to build a GW telescope tomorrow anyway. No, it's got to the point where science is so flipping hard that you have to build a billion dollar machine to prove one little thing cause you won't get your billion dollars to make your next machine wihtout it.
Do you see my point, there are no more garden shed inventors, like the telescope builders of the past etc. Imo we have come to a giant great big wall, and I don't see us getting past it anytime soon.
There will be no star trek.
Indeed we need vaster numbers of people to participate to get to the next stage of understanding but this can be a good thing. In my view this is why science needs to be placed more at the fore of thinking and religion needs to take a backseat. Science is something everyone can be part of and support in their own little way. One of the parts in the LIGO was made by the company I work for. It is a nice feeling that I am a cog in a machine that helped this happen even if I was not directly involved.
I still can't get my head around a space time continuum, especially when related to a trampoline which I heard on TV this morning. Mind you I have trouble with an ever expanding universe and what's beyond the edge! I also struggle with what happened before the big bang.
Andi.
Andi.
I don't understand that statement. If the universe expanded at t=0 from an infinitely small volume, how could we possibly detect the bang ripple in space\time now?
Just about the only thing we can think of that would cause detectable waves is the collision of two black holes. As they collide they spin around each other a lot, and thats the violent movement which causes ripples in spacetime.
There are two measurements, so we can see the speed of the wave (which is the speed of light, and confirms that gravitation are as massless as photons).
Speed of the wave, and the shape and size of the perturbance can be used to say approximately how big the two colliding masses were, and how far away using general relativity.
The black hole is from the frequency and pattern of the wave. So different objects would produce different looking waves.
Slightly explained in this video
Going to sit down to night and watch the full ores conference, hopefully that'll expo' a in more things,
Spacetime is often referred to as the "fabric of spacetime", thats because it behaves a bit like one.
When you create a big movement in the cloth, it doesn't just send one wave. The wave itself creates smaller echoes that follow on from it as it moves across the universe.
The idea is if you have sensitive enough equipment, we will be able to detect these echoes. They should be fairly regular and come from the same direction.
Do the math.
It makes no sense, as to be from a fixed point, it breaks the conservation of energy rules. What is at that point now to create the 'echos'. Where does the energy come from? A 'reflection' would make more sense, but not from a singularity, and even if it did reflect (can they?) how could you possibly decipher it from the background noise.
I call BS on it.
I call BS on it.
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