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Lab Tuned to Gravity's 'Ripples'
Krishna Dagli writes "One of the great scientific experiments of our age is now fully underway. Success would confirm fundamental physical theories and open a new window on the Universe, enabling scientists to probe the moment of creation itself. The experiment is trying to detect ripples created in the fabric of space-time that sweep out from merging black holes or exploding stars and detection would be a final test of Albert Einstein's General Theory of Relativity. "
It's important to have alternative hypotheses, among other reasons, in order to be able to determine when you got a null result. Until the theoreticians have done their homework and provided a reasonable and plausible alternative hypothesis, perhaps we shouldn't be investing millions of dollars (euros) in these kinds of experiments.
That's simply not true. Right now, all our understanding of how the universe works points towards the existence of gravity waves. If we fail to detect them, then one of two things is true:
1) The equipment was wrong
2) The theory was wrong
Until such time as it looks like 2) is the case, there's no basis for exploring alternative hypotheses, especially given that so far, we have no reason to doubt the current one and every reason to believe that it's either valid, or very nearly so.
As for needing an alternative to be able to recognise a null value, that's not the case either. The current theory makes a prediction. If we don't make an observation that matches prediction within expected tolerance and we can find nothing wrong with the equipment, then the theory is most likely wrong. At that point, you can bet your life that people will be scrabbling to work out how, and what needs to be done to correct (or replace) it.
Think of it this way - what if the theory is correct, and there simply *isn't* any "reasonable and plausible alternative hypothesis" (perhaps because we can't think of any, perhaps because there simply aren't any). Should we *never* attempt to confirm it?
It's official. Most of you are morons.
Try this. The experiment is strikingly similar to the Michelson-Morley interferometer, an experiment which also returned a null-result, trying to detect an "aether" for electrmagnetic waves.
The problem with these kinds experiments though is that results are very easily misinterpreted, because we really have no, shall we say, "creativity" in our imagination about such fundamental physics.
The Sagnac-interferometer (which BTW I will be building for a project) seemed to prove the presence of the aether that the Michelson-Morley experiment couldn't detect. It turned out to be a misinterpretation because they didn't quite grasp the concepts. (It turned out to be very useful anyway, as it's the basis for laser-gyroscopes)
This makes experiments like this even more important because if you are to accept any theories as "confirmed" or develop upon them, you need to research every possible result and implication.