Gravitational Waves May Have Been Detected In 1987

KentuckyFC writes "In 1987, a physicist called Joe Weber claimed to have detected gravitational waves at the same time that other scientists spotted a supernova called SN1987A. His claims were largely ignored because of calculations showing that gravitational waves could not be strong enough to be picked up by Weber's equipment, a set of giant aluminium cylinders designed to vibrate as the waves passed by. But these calculations were based on first order effects in the way spacetime can be distorted. Now a new analysis shows that second order effects can enhance gravitational waves by four orders of magnitude, but only when certain asymmetries are present. It turns out that SN1987A possesses just the right kind of asymmetries to make this enhancement possible because the supernova wasn't entirely spherical. Which means that Weber, who died in 2000, may have been the first to see gravitational waves after all."

Comments

Honor

[AKAImBatman]

Gravity waves? I thought they'd never be observed! Impeller Drive, here we come! Now all we need is to prove hyperspace as a viable means of travel and invent Warshawski sails. :-P

(Joking aside, this is great news! Gravity waves have been one of the most difficult aspects of relativistic physics to pin down.)

Re:Honor

[dk90406]

This is not great news. This is (great) speculative news. It is interesting and inspires hope, but I seriously doubt that the scientific community will accept this as proof.
We are talking '87 and there are too many unknowns in the experimental setup, that no-one can clarify now. Did a truck drive by here in '87?

Re:Honor

[Brian Gordon]

The problem is that you can't exactly reproduce a supernova..

Re:Honor

[_Hellfire_]

Well there *is* this star close by...

Re:Honor

[rpjs]

But if this Weber (Joe) detected the gravity waves at the same time as SN1987A lit up, the Honorverse has a major problem as that Weber (David) assumed that gravity waves would be FTL.

Re:Honor

[dk90406]

True. But we don't need to. Just insta-travel(R) 23 LY in the direction away from the Supernova. Wait there for less than a year and repeat the experiment. The waves will be a little weaker, but that would be negligible.

Re:Honor

[Anonymous Coward]

It is interesting and inspires hope

Hope? In me it mostly inspires contempt for the 'scientists' involved.

"No, whatever you think you observed, it can't have happened because it isn't consistent with our theory"

Some years later...

"We've found a way to reconcile your observations with our theory - so you can have been right after all!"

The is the exact opposite of what science is supposed to entail. Truly appalling.

Re:Honor

[PolygamousRanchKid]

Be thankful for that. In another 1,000 years, someone will post simple instructions on how to create a supernova in your basement on the InterGalacticNextGenerationNet (powered by IPv9). And someone will download it, do it, and, for whomever is alive at that time, things will not be very pleasant.

I'd personally hold out for the Gamma Ray Burst recipe. Now *that* would be cooler than an M80 flushed down the toilet, but equally unpleasant, if you happen to be in the path of the gamma rays.

Although this is intended on the lighter side, try to imagine a time in the future, where we can safely pull of stuff like this.

Yo.

Re:Honor

[AKAImBatman]

As I recall, only the grav waves traveling through hyperspace were FTL. So grav waves could be read by sensors at superluminal velocities, but the impeller drive functioned on the light-speed grav waves. I think. :-P

Re:Honor

[dk90406]

No. This is the way science is supposed to work. If something doesn't fit existing theories, it will (and should) be subject to skepticism, until new scientific theories are produced, that may support your observation.

Re:Honor

[Anonymous Coward]

No, this is wrong, as a matter of principal.

The paper was considered methodologically sound, but incorrect, in 1987. There are not "too many" experimental unknowns now, or else the paper would have been considered invalid then. After all, this experiment can't be reproduced, even in principle. The only way to gather any information out of a single observation is to use sound and detailed experimental and observational methodology to logically isolate as many known "independent" variables as possible.

If others collected data in similar units, they could potentially corroborate the analysis.

You can even put upper bound estimates on the error, from a single observation. (Specifically because we have "lots" of observations of our equipment, the "known" laws of physics, etc)

Re:Honor

[Anonymous Coward]

and at what speed do you presume the light emmited from this supernova made its way to earth, if they arrive at the same time, they are both going at a speed they should be going

Re:Honor

[Goaway]

No, that is exactly how science is supposed to work.

Re:Honor

[Animaether]

[10:01:14] This is the sun that Earth is orbiting. It's a regular main sequence star with a core temperature of about sixteen million degrees and enough hydrogen to burn for another five billion years.
[10:01:27] Yeah?
[10:01:30] We wanna blow it up.
[10:01:38] Wow.
[10:01:42] That's, uh...
[10:01:47] Ambitious.
[10:01:47] Ambitious.

Re:Honor

[Anonymous Monkey]

So, all we need is a black hole, some alien technology, and a friendly snake in my head?

Re:Honor

[TheRaven64]

No, science is supposed to be a process of observe, hypothesise, test, repeat. You can discard theories that don't fit hypotheses, but discarding observations because they don't fit theories is the exact opposite of science. This is the kind of behaviour I would expect from people preaching intelligent design, not from anyone who deserves the title of scientist.

Re:Honor

[gomiam]

...but discarding observations because they don't fit theories is the exact opposite of science.

Of course, discarding observations because the error margin was then considered too big makes a lot of sense. That is what happened.

Re:Honor

[Brian Gordon]

Don't they propogate at the speed of light?

Re:Honor

[Brian Gordon]

And to think at one time people naively thought 128 terabits of addressing space was enough.

Re:Honor

[Anonymous Coward]

That's why we'd need to travel those 23 lightyears by non-relativistic means.

Re:Honor

[LiquidAvatar]

Funny... I always thought it was the other way around. If an observation contradicts the dominant theory, I thought the theory should be revised, not the observation.

Re:Honor

[Magee101]

Well true that you can't reproduce an event that equals the size and destructive force of a supernova, the atomic/hydrogen bombs built back in the 40's-50's were based on what -causes- a supernova. All we'd have to do is take the readings from the test explosions of the largest bomb used, and then multiply the pressure/gravitational waves to the level of a star going boom. Not that hard

Re:Honor

[Tubal-Cain]

And some friends that need rescuing before the star goes nova, because one of them is rather fixated on getting revenge on $BADGUY.

Re:Honor

[Lord Ender]

You are both right. Skepticism is key to science (see: peer review, falsifiability requirements). So is the process you mentioned. Without both, science is worthless.

Re:Honor

[Rostin]

There are no golden plates handed down from on high telling us what science is supposed to be like. Science as it is practiced by working scientists is complicated, and it often bears only a passing resemblance to the idealized "scientific method" you learned in elementary school.

Sometimes we are completely justified in throwing away or shelving observations that don't fit with established theories. In the real world, experimental observations can't be neatly disentangled from scientific theory. To test a hypothesis, we must first assume the reliability of a set of laws or theories. If something goes contrary to expectation, it might not be clear why. Is the problem with the hypothesis, or is it with one of our assumptions? Could the experimenter have made an error without realizing it? Could he be dishonest? We have finite time and resources and lots of other research problems.. How much should we invest in sorting this all out? It's just not as simple as, "We possess facts 1, 2, and 3, therefore Theory A is false."

Re:Honor

[Mr. Underbridge]

Of course, discarding observations because the error margin was then considered too big makes a lot of sense. That is what happened.

The theory that was used to reject the observations was the same one being tested. That's circular. God forbid anyone actually inject reality into that feedback loop of the purely theoretical.

I can't tell you how many times truly new knowledge about the universe was ignored because the scientific orthodoxy claimed "that *can't* be right" based on nothing but assertion.

Re:Honor

[Anonymous Coward]

If an observation contradicts the dominant theory, I thought the theory should be revised, not the observation.

Isn't that what the GP said?

If something doesn't fit existing theories, it will (and should) be subject to skepticism, until new scientific theories are produced, that may support your observation.

Re:Honor

[SpazmodeusG]

Gravity waves arriving at the same time as light seems to raise a whole lot of questions to me.

For a start it means gravity affects itself in the same way it bends and affects light. As light travels away from a gravity well it's redshifted, bringing it down to a lower energy state. Light can also be focused by a gravity well (gravitational lensing). Since gravity arrived at the same time it can also do all these things to itself. So why aren't we seeing a whole lot of unpredicted gravitational anomolies if gravity affects itself?

It also raises the question: if light waves can't escape a black hole then why can gravitational waves?
It's not like a black holes gravity well remains in a static position in space once it forms. The gravity well of a black hole apparantly still moves around which would mean information in the form of gravity waves must be able to get out from inside the event horizon.

Lastly if gravity does to itself what it does to light. Wouldn't an increase in mass of an object bring about less gravitational pull than expected?
As the object gets a stronger and stronger gravity well the gravity escaping will have less an less energy (just like the light escaping as it gets redshifted has less and less energy).
So take an object with a 100Gs of gravity, double its mass and you shouldn't end up with 200Gs of gravity. As gravity affects itself in the same ways it affects light.

Re:Honor

[mcvos]

No, science is supposed to be a process of observe, hypothesise, test, repeat. You can discard theories that don't fit hypotheses, but discarding observations because they don't fit theories is the exact opposite of science.

Note that this was an observation that was impossible to reproduce. It's impossible to rule out error or coincidence, so you simply don't have enough to throw out the current theory.

Of course you're free to develop a theory that fits the observation anyway, but nobody did that. Until now, apparently. But we still need a lot more observations to be sure. A single incident is just not enough.

Re:Honor

[PatrickThomson]

If I release a ball and it goes up, the first thing I check for is the helium balloon attached with string. Then, I check to see if the ball itself is full of helium. Then, after a few more checks, I get people in to go "oh yeah, huh, it does go up.", but not before discounting the obvious boring explanations . Failure to do otherwise isn't science.

This is a bit of real science that fell through the cracks because it wasn't exactly repeatable.

Re:Honor

[hitmark]

could it be that he didn't detect the first wave? or am i totally of target?

i'm envisioning something like ripples in a pond after a rock is thrown in.

basically the star going nova yanks at the gravity "fabric", and said "fabric" then vibrates for a while, setting of weaker and weaker waves as the nearby masses acts as "shock absorbers".

and it could be that said wave action plays tricks on the light, as it has to deal with the changes in the gravity...

so, maybe the light from the nova was carried on a wave front of gravity? or am i going way into lala land?

Re:Honor

[hitmark]

not on a single observation. but if said observation is repated, but independent parties, then one can start to talk about a revision of the theory.

if not, one start to look for other reasons why the original experiment got a reading outside the norm...

Re:Honor

[Ortega-Starfire]

IPv9 would be the testing branch. IPv10 would be production.

Re:Honor

[geekoid]

Can you name one?

Re:Honor

[Insanity Defense]

Funny... I always thought it was the other way around. If an observation contradicts the dominant theory, I thought the theory should be revised, not the observation.

If the observation is a unique non repeated and not independently verified one then it is rightfully "set aside" until it is verified. A single observation does not invalidate a theory as the observation itself may be faulty or even falsified.

Re:Honor

[DM9290]

It also raises the question: if light waves can't escape a black hole then why can gravitational waves?

indeed. one would almost think light and gravity waves are not the same kind of thing.

Re:Honor

[Chris Burke]

The theory that was used to reject the observations was the same one being tested. That's circular. God forbid anyone actually inject reality into that feedback loop of the purely theoretical.

Yes, except that same theory was the only thing that would have suggested that he did find a gravity wave. When you're dealing with this kind of fringe physics, where the things you're trying to measure are minute, poorly understood, and largely detectable only through inference, there's often a circular relationship between the theory and the experiment designed to test the theory. When the fundamental design of your experiment depends upon the calculations in the theory being correct, and then you get a result outside the bounds of what the theory allows, then what exactly can you say other than "null result"?

I mean, if his data was by itself compelling enough to be convincing evidence of a gravity wave, then he could have convinced others that this was the case. You can talk about "orthodoxy" all you want, fact is that physicists and astronomers regularly publish results that essentially say "this outcome does not match existing theory and our theory is probably wrong". We see it on slashdot itself on occasion. But the fact is that getting convincing evidence of a gravity wave is tough and nobody else could repeat his experiment or try to increase the accuracy. So without at least being able to say that the result fell within predicted results, what is to say that this was really a gravity wave and not a passing train or road construction or anything else, except assertion?

After all, is it not the fact that our newly updated theory (a very mercurial orthodoxy this is) says that his results were within the expected range that has caused you to look back and say that he was ignored due to orthodoxy? If it weren't for the new theory, there'd still be no reason to think he was right. Even if he was right!

So I guess my point is, he may have gotten a bum rap and been ignored, but it also isn't obvious that this implies that had he not been ignored, gravity waves would have been confirmed by his experiment at the time he conducted it.

Re:Honor

[CrimsonAvenger]

As I recall, only the grav waves traveling through hyperspace were FTL. So grav waves could be read by sensors at superluminal velocities, but the impeller drive functioned on the light-speed grav waves. I think. :-P

No, he's right. The Honorverse assumes that gravity waves are FTL. This is false.

But at the time the first Honr story was written, gravity waves hadn't been observed, so it was still possible to include lightspeed gravity waves as "one of those things those poor schlubs in the 20th Century got wrong about physics".

And besides, it made it a lot easier to handwave the FTL communications he needed in the second book.

Re:Honor

[Slumdog]

If I release a ball and it goes up.....

I think the scientific method radiates outwards from the point where the experiment was performed: 1. Did you check if your world is upside down? 2. Did you check if you're on drugs? 3. Maybe the ball is made of material lighter than air? etc. Its not science if you didn't invoke hyperbolic doubt....(i think)

Re:Honor

[SpazmodeusG]

But that's my point. Gravity waves and light waves ARE NOT the same thing.

So it seems strange that the gravity waves and light waves arrived at the exact same time. Just think of all the different ways light can be affected by mass on its way here from a distant supernova. Every single bit of mass changes the path of light slightly.

For gravity waves to arrive at the exact same time as EM waves, gravity must do to itself what it does to the EM waves.

Re:Honor

[ppanon]

This might explain that apparent conundrum. Namely that the maximum speed of propagation is a fundamental property of geometric fabric of the universe. However that article is pretty light on the details; I'm going to have to hunt down some more info sometime. This new approach in the long run might also help provide some new insight on how to reconcile QM and relativity.

Re:Honor

[Binestar]

The FTL part was more of detecting ships in real time based on their gravity but not being able to see them so you could have various tactical options open to you.

Re:Honor

[grcumb]

IPv9 would be the testing branch. IPv10 would be production.

What. Ever.

You and I both know we'll barely be finished the IPv6 roll out by then.

Re:Honor

[VolciMaster]

intended on the lighter side

I think you mean "ultra-bright" side ;')

Re:Honor

[mog007]

Gravity, as is currently understood, is a depression on the fabric of spacetime, and a gravity wave could be considered a ripple on that fabric. Fact is, according to current theory, information can't propagate faster than light in a vacuum, so if the sun instantly blinked out of existence, the earth would still feel a tug of the sun's gravity for eight minutes before we finally flew off like the string had been severed.

Gravity isn't exactly like light though, because gravity "escapes" from black holes. You can stand near the edge of an event horizon, and still feel the influence of the gravity inside the black hole.

Re:Honor

[SpazmodeusG]

Once black holes are formed their gravity well isn't static. It moves about and changes in size as new mass falls into the event horizon and as the mass inside the black hole itself moves around through space.

The gravity waves eminating from these changes in gravity would be based on what the mass inside the event horizon is doing.

Re:Honor

[Anonymous Coward]

Unless, of course, you are skeptical about global warming.

Re:Honor

[AKAImBatman]

That was only in the first half of the series. Later on, FTL comms were introduced using satellites with grav-pulse generators. The idea was that an early warning system could detect and alert of an enemy as soon as they jump into the system. The Manticorians could then let loose with a missile barrage guided by drones with FTL comms thus making their targeting solutions superior to their opponent's.

Re:Honor

[jamesswift]

To quote Richard Feynman....

We have learned a lot from experience about how to handle some of the ways we fool ourselves. One example: Millikan measured the charge on an electron by an experiment with falling oil drops, and got an answer which we now know not to be quite right. It's a little bit off because he had the incorrect value for the viscosity of air. It's interesting to look at the history of measurements of the charge of an electron, after Millikan. If you plot them as a function of time, you find that one is a little bit bigger than Millikan's, and the next one's a little bit bigger than that, and the next one's a little bit bigger than that, until finally they settle down to a number which is higher. Why didn't they discover the new number was higher right away? It's a thing that scientists are ashamed of - this history - because it's apparent that people did things like this: When they got a number that was too high above Millikan's, they thought something must be wrong - and they would look for and find a reason why something might be wrong. When they got a number close to Millikan's value they didn't look so hard. And so they eliminated the numbers that were too far off, and did other things like that. We've learned those tricks nowadays, and now we don't have that kind of a disease.

Re:Honor

[Shimmer]

This would imply that you could communicate from inside a black hole to an observer outside the black hole, which I believe violates the proposition that "black holes have no hair" - i.e. no discernible attributes other than mass and spin.

I'm not disagreeing with you, just wanted to point out the apparent contradiction.

Re:Honor

[Klintus Fang]

It wasn't ignored only because the prevailing theory said it can't be right. It was also ignored because there was no possible way to reproduce the experiment. When experimental results go against established theory, science usually gets to the bottom of it by redoing the experiment multiple times over to get stronger confirmation. One experiment unfortunately, all by itself, is not useful. It needs to be reproducible. The fact that this one was not reproducible was the problem.

Re:Honor

[Klintus Fang]

I don't believe you are understanding what the no hair theorem really says.

The no hair theorem only refers to parameters of the blackhole that are independent of the frame of reference. A gravitational wave generated by a accelerating mass isn't independent from the frame of reference. Different frames will view it differently.

Also, the poster who said the gravitational wave says something about what is going on inside the black hole is incorrect I believe. The gravitational wave says something about the black hole's velocity and acceleration through space-time because it is that acceleration which produces the waves. The wave says nothing about what may or may not be occurring on the inside.

Re:Honor

[joe_frisch]

General relativity predicts that gravity waves travel at the speed of light. The gravity waves don't come from "inside" the black hole but from gravitational fields of the material collapsing into a black hole. You can also get gravity waves from two colliding black holes (cool!). The event horizons merge and oscillate briefly, emitting some reasonably percentage of the combined mass energy as gravity waves. There is a lot of evidence for gravity waves from the spin-down of neutron star binaries. It is pretty well accepted that they exist, but no direct observations yet. Webber might have seen something, but I doubt it would pass traditional 4-sigma requirement for a "discovery".

Re:Honor

[gomiam]

I can't tell you how many times truly new knowledge about the universe was ignored because the scientific orthodoxy claimed "that *can't* be right" based on nothing but assertion.

Were they accepted later? Then your "ignoring truly new knowledge" argument doesn't hold water. Do you expect science to accept every new knowledge just because someone found it when it's not repeatable? I certainly hope you don't, and scientists rejected Weber's claims because they weren't able to repeat them (and not only in 1987, but in the 60s and 70s too). Weber got a bad deal? Sorry, that's life. It's not like he was told he would burn if he didn't stop his line of investigation, right?

Of course there are controversies, doubt is the steady state of science. And doubt applies also to new discoveries that, according to current knowledge, are below the threshold of detection. If, later, it is discovered that they were actually right, nothing is lost. Science is not about personalities, it is about knowledge (or, at least, it should be).

Re:Honor

[SpazmodeusG]

Also, the poster who said the gravitational wave says something about what is going on inside the black hole is incorrect I believe. The gravitational wave says something about the black hole's velocity and acceleration through space-time because it is that acceleration which produces the waves. The wave says nothing about what may or may not be occurring on the inside.

When 2 black holes merge they form a peanut shaped event horizon (they don't instantly snap into a perfectly round sphere on contact). If i detected gravity waves from a spinning event horizon that was peanut shaped I could easily tell there were originally 2 masses involved and from the spin I could also tell the velocity of those masses as well as the position of those masses.

It seems to me that gravity is a dead giveaway of not only the velocity and acceleration of a black hole but also the mass and the position of mass inside the black hole.

Re:Honor

[PiSkyHi]

I think you have an interesting perspective of gravity.

The problem here may stem from thinking of gravity as affecting itself - it affects of all objects that possess mass/energy - directly in relation to mass.

if light waves can't escape a black hole then why can gravitational waves?

The speed of gravity and the speed of light are actually based on the speed of certainty of the speed of causality - its related to information, or knowledge of existence being a function of time.

The gravity waves are not EM waves, they are not really waves in that sense.

They are perceived as waves in the mind, but are actually more like a phenomenon due to our inherent sense of spatial location as being static. If you can accept that the speed of causality is the issue and that space and time follow Einsteins general theory, then these waves are only present when thought of upon a euclidean spatial background. If more of us realised how innate our euclidean sense is and then realised it is not correct when it describes our space-time, we may realise that gravity waves are an observational phenomenon like red-shift and quite possibly carry no energy at all - which is why they don't affect themselves and why many believe the search for displaced energy or measurable spatial contractions are futile

It is true for instance that the onset of a gravity wave cannot be measured simply because the act is about the relationship between this far-away object and the local intstrument and all parts of the instrument are affected by the wave in the same way, so local interactions remain consistent - some hypothesise the contractions can be observed perpendicular to the wave onset, but I am not convinced.

Re:Honor

[Klintus Fang]

I suspect that what you are demonstrating is only that the "no hair theorem" is not a statement about unstable black hole solutions to the gravitational field equations which have not yet collapsed into a stable solution. It is a statement about gravitationally stable solutions to those equations.

Re:Honor

[Arancaytar]

But actually manipulating gravity is probably far more difficult than observing it. ;)

Re:Honor

[Pentium100]

atomic/hydrogen bombs built back in the 40's-50's were based on what -causes- a supernova.

Nor really. Hydrogen (fusion) bombs were built on what causes a star to emit light. A supernova is caused by a different mechanism. The star explodes when its core collapses under its own weight.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supernova

Re:Honor

[hitmark]

perfect, now im envisioning whirling dervishes in space...

that is, if i got the rotation placed inside the correct dimension...

also, do this mean that there could be a max speed anything can move at, and it just happens that the photon is right now the only thing we know of that moves at that speed?

while i have interest in physics, this kind of stuff makes one wonder if the effort is worth it...

Re:Honor

[Attila Dimedici]

At the time that David Weber wrote the book that contained the idea that gravity waves were FTL, there was debate in the scientific community as to whether or not gravity waves had the same limit as light. At the time there were philosophical reasons why different scientists took different positions, but no data to support one or the other. Within two years of publication, new data was acquired and the scientifically established position was that gravity waves were also limited by the speed of light.
David Weber chose to continue his Honor series as an alternate universe, instead of an imaginary future universe.

Re:Honor

[JohnFluxx]

As joe_frish's post points out, gravitational waves don't come from inside a black hole.

Gravitational waves generated actually inside a black hole would not be able to escape. (Since otherwise we'd be able to determine the structure inside blackholes from the gravitational waves. And that's a big no-no)

Re:Honor

[corbettw]

Weber has revised this in later novels. Gravity waves (in the Honorverse) exist both in normal space and in hyperspace. The "shadow" of the wave in hyperspace effectively moves FTL; gravcoms work by detecting the presence of the wave in the alpha band, which moves at 16 times the speed of light.

It's kinda kludgy, but it's internally consistent with the rest of the physics in the books, so it's OK.

Re:Honor

[Ortega-Starfire]

Indeed. But the point I was making is that odd numbered IPv branches are reserved for testing. That should have been obvious.

Re:Honor

[Anonymous Coward]

According to E=mc^2, all energy has mass, including gravitational potential energy. However, in the equations for general relativity, the "pressure" term, which results in gravity feeding on itself, is only invoked in very strong fields (or is very weak otherwise), like near a singularity (this causes a conflict with QM), so gravitational waves will escape a black hole, essentially because an event horizon grows outward in our time frame. The black hole "reaches out" to its victim, you might say.

Re:Honor

[Goaway]

You can discard theories that don't fit hypotheses, but discarding observations because they don't fit theories is the exact opposite of science.

You have quite obviously never done any science. An "observation" isn't some kind of absolute truth. An observation is a set of data, with error margins and uncertainties. I can't do a measurement and get the result "gravity waves exist!".

What I can do is do a measurement, and then use a theory to predict what the measurement result should have been, had it been perfect. Then I compare the actual and predicted result, and if they agree, within the error limits of the measurement, I can say that I have an indication that my theory might be correct. If they do not agree, that is an indication that my model is not correct.

However, it might be that my estimations of the error are incorrect, in either case. Or I may have misunderstood the theory I was testing and designed the experiment wrong. Or I might have made an error in my calculations. And so on.

This is why you need a good theory to back up an experiment, or it is useless. A million things can go wrong, and several of them did, in this case - and we can't even tell which exact ones.

Re:Honor

[RichiH]

Hey thanks, you spared me explaining this myself :)

Re:Honor

[ppanon]

Also, does this mean that there could be a max speed anything can move at, and it just happens that the photon is right now the only thing we know of that moves at that speed?

That's my interpretation of the article. I suspect it would also imply that there can be no such thing as tachyons.

Re:Honor

[Frozen Void]

I can see them being used for encapsulated objects/stream with unique addressees(kinda like GUID) in programs which would connect the networks and get their own addressing blocks.
They could have unique cryptographically strong random addressing for any transactions(streams) itself encrypted with strong encryption,etc(even choosing next sending address via pools assigned to programs communicating).

Re:Honor

[HuguesT]

No, it's real easy. Just sort of flay your arms about at little, that ought to do it.

Ah, you mean *significantly*, as in: to have any kind of measurable effect? sorry :-)

Re:Honor

[hitmark]

and then someone detects them, only to have said discovery buried for some 30+ years...

Re:Honor

[Anonymous Coward]

HA! But this is not the first time.
1945 New Mexico:
"The Atom bomb may start a chain reaction in the atmosphere."
"But it probably won't."
"How sure are you?"
"Mostly sure."
"OK, let's do it."

Re:Honor

[thrash242]

My first thought was about this and the fact that both their last names are "Weber". Coincidence? I think not.

Re:Honor

[Anonymous Coward]

but you could reproduce the experiment

FTFS

[Anonymous Coward]

In 1987, a physicist called Joe Weber...

So, what was his real name? Also, editors, the last statement of your summary is a sentence fragment. Please fix this.

Re:FTFS

[elrous0]

Actually, you're wrong. There is clearly supposed to be an "and" before "claimed." The physicist who called Joe just wishes to stay anonymous at this time.

Re:FTFS

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, his real name was not Joe Weber. From wiki:

'His name was "Yonah" until he entered grammar school. He had no birth certificate, and his father had taken the last name of "Weber" '

It's also interesting to note that Joe Weber was not a second rate physicist, having studied at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton with no less a luminary than John Wheeler, who himself published with Einstein.

Re:FTFS

[Anonymous Coward]

In 1987, a physicist called Joe Weber...

So, what was his real name?

In your race to show your superiority, you neglected to do a little background reading on the subject.

"Weber was the youngest of four children born in Paterson, New Jersey, to Yiddish-speaking immigrant parents. His name was 'Yonah' until he entered grammar school. He had no birth certificate, and his father had taken the last name of 'Weber' to match an available passport in order to emigrate to the US. Thus, Joe Weber had little proof of either his family or his given name..." (from the link provided in the Slashdot summary)

So yes, he was called Joe Weber.

Re:FTFS

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, his father emigrated from Europe and used a passport with the name Weber, well because he had one. Joe's real first name was Yonah, and he adopted Joe as his name for school.

So, yes he was called Joe Weber, but that was probably not his 'real' name.

link to wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Weber#Personal_life

Re:FTFS

[Anonymous Coward]

His parents started out calling him Yonah, and his dad took on the name Weber in order to emigrate to the US. He had no birth certificate. He didn't become Joseph Weber until he started going to school.

Re:FTFS

[Anonymous Coward]

There are no second rate physicists. Einstein was/is an overrated media golden boy, he barely grokked linear algebra.

Re:FTFS

[Lord Ender]

I used to be a grammar nazi. Then I dated someone who spoke English as her second language (after French). Such an experience will thoroughly train you to suppress your nazi tendencies. Trust me.

Re:FTFS

[bonch]

You should look up "sense of humor" on Wikipedia while you're busy busting people's balls.

Re:FTFS

[OneSmartFellow]

You sure, because my sister dated a Joe Weber from Princeton, who was also into physics in a big way. She got pregnant, but when we went to find the bast4&# all we found was this weird box with two aluminum tubes in it

Re:FTFS

[Anonymous Coward]

I know you're just being snarky (please stop), but according to his wikipedia page he never had a birth certificate, was 'named' Yonah before entering grammar school, and that his family name Weber was taken by his dad from (forged?) documents upon immigrating to the US. So 'called' might be appropriate after all.

Re:FTFS

[Jedi Alec]

Such an experience will thoroughly train you to suppress your nazi tendencies. Trust me.

Because you were too busy testing just how enlightened the french are about sex? And yes, I speak from experience(no, not the grammar nazi part).

Re:FTFS

[atraintocry]

Dammit, Faraday, you *always* do this. Now is not the time.

Dude,

[OneSmartFellow]

...where's my surfboard ? I'm totally stoked, I want to be the first to ride a gravity wave, that'd be, like really heavy, man !

Re:Dude,

[boarder8925]

There's that word again. "Heavy." Why are things so heavy in the future? Is there a problem with the earth's gravitational pull?

Re:Dude,

[linzeal]

Americans importing half of the solar systems foodstuffs have grown so large that the average city block in the 20th century barely contains the girth of one 5000 ton Homo Americanus Gigantus. This displacement of mass has caused a localized gravitational disturbance in the curvature of spacetime large enough that places like the former state of Texas are now 200 feet below the 2000 BCE sea level. If it wasn't for the mile high tall walls with lasers on them surrounding the US to keep out aliens it would be completely underwater except for parts of Colorado.

Re:Dude,

[Anonymous Coward]

Americans importing half of the solar systems foodstuffs have grown so large that the average city block in the 20th century barely contains the girth of one 5000 ton Homo Americanus Gigantus.

We must elect BARAKUS!

Only he can give the solar system the redistribution of fat that it so desperately needs!

Re:Dude,

[Anonymous Coward]

that'd be, like really heavy, man !

What, is there a problem with the earth's gravitational field?

Nobel prize

[Alain Williams]

Can this be awarded posthumously ?

Re:Nobel prize

[Anonymous Coward]

Afraid not.

Re:Nobel prize

[Bwian_of_Nazareth]

No, it cannot. See Nobelprize FAQ

Re:Nobel prize

[Bwian_of_Nazareth]

No, I am afraid you are not right. It specifically says that you cannot be awarded the prize posthumously... Effective from 1974, the prize may only go to a deceased person to whom it was already awarded (usually in October) but who had died before he/she could receive the Prize on December 10.

Re:Nobel prize

[doconnor]

No Nobel Peace Prize was awarded in 1948 because, "there was no suitable living candidate". It's generally believed that Mahatma Gandhi would have got it if he had not been assassinated on January 30, 1948.

Re:Nobel prize

[MyLongNickName]

Please mod my post down. It is not informative. It is actually wrong as pointed out by others.

Re:Nobel prize

[Anonymous Coward]

Adults with imaginary friends should be given medical help, not political power.

Re:Nobel prize

[matt_hs]

John McCain? Is that you?

Re:Nobel prize

[Hellpop]

Obama has an imaginary friend too. Who it is just depends on who you ask...

Y'know, somehow I doubt that is his only imaginary friend.

Re:Nobel prize

[marnues]

No no no. Please mod up. That's one of the most informative and straight forward threads I've ever seen on /.

Re:Nobel prize

[obliv!on]

Rosalind Franklin is a prime example of the fact that the noble prize is not awarded posthumously.

Re:Nobel prize

[Brimmith]

There's only one requirement to win the Noble Prize; you have to answer the phone when they call you to tell you that you have won. Even if you answer the phone with your last dieing breath you can win it.

Re:Nobel prize

[Arancaytar]

So you can be awarded the prize if you die in the months before the ceremony. I hope they don't require the coffin to be shipped to Stockholm in such cases. :P

Re:Nobel prize

[cparker15]

Adults with imaginary friends should be given medical help, not Slashdot accounts.

Fixed that for you.

Re:Nobel prize

[Fatalis]

Why in the world is this modded offtopic...

Waves?

[imajinarie]

And here I was always convinced they were Gravity Particles.

Re:Waves?

[Anonymous Coward]

If they're anything like light, they're both.

Re:Waves?

[girlintraining]

And here I was always convinced they were Gravity Particles.

The lawyers for the Standard Model called. They mentioned something about a Cease and Desist Order: You're not allowed to discuss gravity around anyone schooled in quantum mechanics-- It apparently causes emotional duress.

Re:Waves?

[Plutonite]

You're not allowed to discuss ANYTHING near folks who have dabbled around with Quantum Mechanics. Most statements not formulated as probabilities cause them to cry, or at least fart loudly.

Re:Waves?

[JohnFluxx]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graviton

"In physics, the graviton is a hypothetical elementary particle that mediates the force of gravity in the framework of quantum field theory. "

In laymans talk - Gravity Particles.

How much

[MyLongNickName]

How much does it have to suck to die, with your observations being discredited, and your claims laughed at? Then a decade later, the scientific community goes "oops, you were right".

And now, in Slashdot's infinite wisdom, I am required to wait five minutes between posts.

Re:How much

[paiute]

How much does it have to suck to die, with your observations being discredited, and your claims laughed at? Then a decade later, the scientific community goes "oops, you were right".

This guy had a carrier shot out from under him. I don't think the naysaying of a bunch of geek theorists bothered him much.

Re:How much

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure glad you didn't die during those five minutes. I mean, how much does it have to suck to die, with your post being discredited, and your claims laughed at? Then a decade later, the Slashdot community goes "Oops, you were right" with a +5 Insightful.

Re:How much

[Anonymous Coward]

And now, in Slashdot's infinite wisdom, I am required to wait five minutes between posts.

It took you 5 minutes to write that? Funny, how with the power of the internet, I spent less than 5 minutes googling all known organisms on the planet Earth...

Re:How much

[MyLongNickName]

I would argue it might upset him more. I mean, this is his work. You do not get to this level without putting a lot of your heart and soul into it. To be convinced that you are on the edge of a major discovery only to have it rejected has to be disheartening.

Re:How much

[Em Emalb]

Probably doesn't suck at all for this guy, I'm sure he doesn't care at all. Maybe his family and friends, but he probably doesn't care one bit.

Re:How much

[Shakrai]

This guy had a carrier shot out from under him.

For those wondering, he was a crew member of the USS Lexington, which was lost at the Battle of the Coral Sea.

Re:How much

[Bemopolis]

Ask Alfred Wegener.

Re:How much

[Kjella]

How much does it have to suck to die, with your observations being discredited, and your claims laughed at? Then a decade later, the scientific community goes "oops, you were right".

Isn't that what they say about great artists too? IMO it's just bullshit to soothe the 99% who'll remain utterly insignificant after their death too, but it's not like scientists are the only ones not to be understood by their contemporaries.

Re:How much

[MBCook]

Hopefully not too much.

If I die before my Hambuger Earmuffs are finished thought, I may get the opportunity to find out though.

*glaven* warm ears...

Re:How much

[east coast]

As a scientist, I would find it a far better thing to have my claims proven correct after my death than to have them declared correct in my lifetime only to be discredited later due to lazy peer review.

Science should be a marathon, not a sprint.

Re:How much

[JustinOpinion]

Then a decade later, the scientific community goes "oops, you were right".

Hm. But this raises an interesting question. Was he actually right?

Let's assume for the moment that TFA is correct, that higher-order terms can enhance gravity waves and that this is the case for SN1987A. So Weber's measurements in 1987 contained a valid signature of a gravity wave.

In a sense, then, he did detect gravity waves. And so he was right in saying "I detected gravity waves". However, he may have been right for the wrong reasons. Science works by interpreting data, and convincing others that your interpretation is correct. Weber was not able to do so. He was not able to convince others because he couldn't provide a way to connect the magnitude of the signal in his measurements to the available theory.

Now, if he had done what the present scientists have done, and demonstrate that the higher-order terms make gravity waves detectable in his apparatus, then he might have been able to convince his colleagues. Then he would really have been right (and for the right reasons). But he didn't (as far as I can tell). He incorrectly said "gravity waves, as described by these theories/equations, have been measured on my instrument"... which is wrong.

Some of you may think I'm just splitting hairs or something. But it's important because in science being right is not about randomly guessing the right answer... it's about providing a robust argument based on repeatable measurements. In science, happening upon the right answer using the wrong logic isn't really considered a good thing. As an extreme analogy, imagine that I am trying to predict when the next volcanic eruption will be, and I come up with a complicated theory based on tides. Then I correctly predict an eruption. A few years later some smarter guys come along and create a really great theory that predicts volcanic eruptions, and show that it is really based on magma flow... and that I was just lucky to have predicted the eruption. Was I "right" in my prediction?

Re:How much

[poopdeville]

That depends on whether there's any causal link between the tide and magma flow. (There is)

Re:How much

[shma]

How much does it have to suck to die, with your observations being discredited, and your claims laughed at? Then a decade later, the scientific community goes "oops, you were right".

You obviously didn't read the actual paper. This is in no way a rigorous theoretical argument that Weber saw gravitational waves. It's nothing more than a rough order of magnitude calculation. A second look should be taken, but we should not start handing out posthumous awards right away.

And who was laughing at him? Weber was regarded as a pioneer of gravitational wave experiments. You can find a discussion of his work in standard textbooks. You seem to assume that anyone who doesn't succeed in every one of their experiments is summarily drummed out of the scientific community. If that were so, we'd have no scientists left.

The most telling part of the paper comes at the end: "It would also be necessary to check that the predictions of this proposal do not violate the absence of observed gravitational waves from other sources." To me, this 10^4 enhancement factor is probably enough that we'd have seen GW from a variety of sources by now in our more sophisticated detectors (which are interferometers, and are unrelated to Weber's setup), which leads me to be dubious about the claims of enhancement.

Re:How much

[khallow]

The most telling part of the paper comes at the end: "It would also be necessary to check that the predictions of this proposal do not violate the absence of observed gravitational waves from other sources." To me, this 10^4 enhancement factor is probably enough that we'd have seen GW from a variety of sources by now in our more sophisticated detectors (which are interferometers, and are unrelated to Weber's setup), which leads me to be dubious about the claims of enhancement.

But I gather those aren't as sensitive to the second order effects in question, right?

Re:How much

[MollyB]

The ship that bore the name Lexington was CV-2 and was sunk at Coral Sea. The Lexington lives, however, when CV-16 was rechristened Lexington. The Lex is moored in Corpus Christi, TX.

Re:How much

[BlueStrat]

Ask Alfred Wegener.

Bah, just ask me!

I invent the time machine, but die before getting credit because some corporation sent an assassin back in time..hold on, there's the doorbell.

>BANG!

Aaagghh!...NO_CARRIER

Re:How much

[shma]

But I gather those aren't as sensitive to the second order effects in question, right?

Wrong. The supposed 10^4 enhancement factor is in the magnitude of the GW waves and would be seen by any detector.

Re:How much

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny, how with all those l33t sk1lz, you can't fucking comprehend what you read.

Re:How much

[ShakaUVM]

In a sense, then, he did detect gravity waves. And so he was right in saying "I detected gravity waves". However, he may have been right for the wrong reasons. Science works by interpreting data, and convincing others that your interpretation is correct.
Not necessarily. There's different things under the title of science, and one of them is black-box science, when you're investigating something that you don't know the slightest thing about, and seeing what happens. We don't know exactly how gravity waves should behaves, so reporting that you detected them (even when the math says you shouldn't be able to), *is* valid science. As Feynman said, experiments trump math.

 

Re:How much

[Anonymous Coward]

Get a fcuking clue.

Re:How much

[jamesh]

Then a decade later, the scientific community goes "oops, you were right".

In further news, a sharp jump in gravity waves being detected since this new discovery was announced have now been determined to have been caused by Joe Weber rapidly spinning in his grave.

Re:How much

[Sanat]

What a brave man this Mr. Wegener was.

His theory on continental drift was pretty accurate, but like Weber he never got the credit.

Back in 1952 I was in the 3rd grade (Ohio) and remember Mrs. Beard the teacher showing us a pull down map on the world in geography class. I raised my hand and said "Look Mrs Beard... if you push all of the continents together they fit together like a puzzle... she said "Sanat, don't be ridiculous, that is the stupidest thing I have ever heard."

Seeing patterns is one of the best capabilities that I possessed in this lifetime.

Re:How much

[John Hasler]

> We don't know exactly how gravity waves should behave...

That isn't exactly true. General Relativity predicts exactly how they should behave. However, computing the amplitude for a real event such as an asymmetric supernova is very difficult, and in Weber's day they settled for approximations such as assuming symmetry. Thus they had reason to suspect there was a small chance that their calculations were wrong and Weber's measurements right.

Re:How much

[hitmark]

the patent lawyers disagree with you...

Re:How much

[John Hasler]

But it was known that the calculations were approximations.

Re:How much

[CrimsonAvenger]

That isn't exactly true. General Relativity predicts exactly how they should behave

GR predicts exactly how they should beahve, if GR is true and correct in every particular. Until we detect enough gravity waves to see whether this is so, we're not entirely sure how gravity waves behave, or that GR is entirely correct.

Which was probably a big part of the reason everyone said "nah, didn't happen" back in '87. If he saw what he thought he saw, then something would've had to've been wrong with GR*, and we can' have that.

* actually not, of course, but that's sure the way it looked in '87 - if this guy is right, Einstein is wrong. And who are you going to believe, him, or Big Al?

Re:How much

[mog007]

What more could a scientist hope for? You're ostracized your entire life, and after you're dead and forgotten, your research comes back to the forefront and people realize you were onto something.

Surely Copernicus and Galileo would be psyched to be part of the group who resurrected the concept of science. What about Darwin? Darwin's ideas were good, but not good enough. He had a mechanism for evolution, but no way of allowing the mutations to be passed on. With the synthesis of genetics, Darwin's name has become as much a synonym for biology as Einstein or Newton has become for Physics.

Re:How much

[bjorniac]

That's funny - do you know Al Gore by any chance? He used that same quote in his movie, only he attributed it to a classmate.

Re:How much

[Sanat]

No, this was a personal experience of mine. I am sure that the world is filled by many who see things in patterns and it is blazingly obvious to those individuals that the continents were once all connected. Mrs. Beard is now in her nineties and in a home for the elderly in Celina, Ohio. I am going to visit my great aunt who is also there and perhaps stop by and see Mrs. Beard before she passes over.

Just as there are those that can sing with perfect pitch, or those that can paint so very realistically, or nurture animals, or nurture plants, there are those that see patterns with only a few data points

I am sure that Al Gore's classmate was also a pattern seeing person as well.

Sometimes the actions of teachers are pretty predictable... at least back in the 50's.

Thank you for sharing the information about Al's classmate.

Re:How much

[PiSkyHi]

God using cheap scissors (again).

Re:How much

[madcow_bg]

That isn't exactly true. General Relativity predicts exactly how they should behave

GR predicts exactly how they should beahve, if GR is true and correct in every particular. Until we detect enough gravity waves to see whether this is so, we're not entirely sure how gravity waves behave, or that GR is entirely correct.

Which was probably a big part of the reason everyone said "nah, didn't happen" back in '87. If he saw what he thought he saw, then something would've had to've been wrong with GR*, and we can' have that.

* actually not, of course, but that's sure the way it looked in '87 - if this guy is right, Einstein is wrong. And who are you going to believe, him, or Big Al?

You portray it as a battle between people, when in fact it was battle between theories. While protecting established theories on the grounds that they are infaliable is stupid and NOT science, protecting them because you have issues with the methodology of the experiment itself is sound.

Re:How much

[CrimsonAvenger]

You portray it as a battle between people, when in fact it was battle between theories.

If you don't think scientists are people, you need to rething things a bit.

Yes, scientists are impressed be names, just like most of the rest of us. "Come look at this, I've just proved Albert Einstein wrong!" is NOT the sort of thing that strengthens one's academic possibilities. Unless you have a holy hell of a lot of proof. And even then, count on a generation of scientists disputing you till the last of the fossils die off.

Is this ideal? Not really. But the world we live includes few things that meet the definition of ideal.

Theoretically, of course, you are correct. the battle is over a theory (wasn't even a battle between theories - whatisname had seen something that GR said couldn't be seen with his apparatus, but he had no theory to explain why he saw the unseeable, just the obervation itself. The theory would have to wait).

But the Names involved would shape the battle.

And Einstein is still a big one. Perhaps the biggest, though Hawking might disagree.

Re:How much

[khallow]

Maybe that is so. Weber appears to have a dubious history of irreproducible results. But I'd have to know more about Weber's design and the sensitivity of competing gravitational wave detectors. A bald assertion on your part doesn't convince me that "any detector" would have seen these. In any case, it is worth noting that there hasn't been a "nearby" supernova since 1987A and far more sensitive gravitational wave detectors are online. Any sufficiently asymmetric supernovas will be seen and we can determine whether this effect is large enough to have been detectable by Weber's instruments.

Re:How much

[corbettw]

As a scientist, I would find it a far better thing to have my claims proven correct after my death

Except that, as a scientist, you must realize that without consciousness you could not "find" anything. So no, you wouldn't find it better to have this happen after death, it would be irrelevant to you since you would no longer exist.

Re:How much

[Anonymous Coward]

When is something in science "actually right?" Most things we consider right are approximations anyways, such as genetics in biology even to classical physics versus our current understanding of quantum physics.

"Some of you may think I'm just splitting hairs or something. But it's important because in science being right is not about randomly guessing the right answer... it's about providing a robust argument based on repeatable measurements."

You're arguing about the process of science, which is beyond observation that contributes to science. An apple that is held at a position and released and meets another cline such as a surface or level is an observation. I can state that some force is involved and probably be accurate. That idea itself centuries ago would be revolutionary. I can even say the apple going up is different than the one going down, depends on the fluid medium (say water versus air), and still be accurate and, more importantly, correct.

You naming the one gravity and the other based on some factors of buoyancy is an advancement of the understanding and hence the science. Doesn't make what I saw or even said wrong or inaccurate. You just have a better explanation that is more fundamental and extensible.

How many things in science's understanding are based on weird devices that simply panned out? How much in science is based on experimentation, observation, and simple progression in understanding, instead of exacting explanation? So many people think Ptolemy was just wrong about heavenly bodies, ignoring the fact that he was right and advanced the field from what it was in his past. Science isn't just about the argument, but the progression of understanding as well.

Otherwise, taking your criteria for what is considered science, you're also arguing that because there is a wrong line in Newton's Principia that cancelled itself out that Newton was just lucky and his contributions were simply, well, little? (Are you the modern version of Hooke?)

[hypothetical scenario]
"Was I "right" in my prediction?"

(what criteria does "really based" meet and determined it?)

If the magna flow affected tides or the tides magna flow, then yes, you were. The manga flow fellows' explanation is better and more accurate though, being more direct. But if magna flow caused a tidal change, which you were unware, and you observed the tidal change and noticed the connection, you were both lucky and correct. iow, part of your claims would be right, some of it, just a new explanation better shows the prediction.

In fact, isn't this rather similar to in the case between classical and non-classical physics? Classic physics really is done away with, no better than Ptolemy's predictions, yet it's still quite accurate and explanatory.

Would also say that since many physics depends on mathematical calculations, particularly calculus, that higher end physics is simply wrong because it depends on calculus, which is flawed particularly along particular boundaries? These are provable, immutable facts and limitations in the methodology, and applying your argument above, would render the theory wrong and "lucky" if someone simply came up with a more accurate or better reason.

To extend your hypothetical, what if someone came up with a better explanation of magna flow, and showed the magna flow interaction was based on the material composition, those materials' interactions on an atomic level, and water content. The new theory is more accurate, and is what is "really based" on. Were the magna folks wrong?

At what points are observation, modeling, and your "really based" criteria meeting and diverging, and which is science and not to you? I agree with you that your robust criteria is science for sure, but we seem to disagree on the finer points, the splitting hairs, maybe because I've read too many instances where something was observed, predicted, shown right, and explained later, and only the latter was caused "science." Scientific models are imparte

Gravity model

[cyberchondriac]

One thing I've never liked about the current popular gravity model, you know, the one they discuss on discovery channel, usually for a cosmology special, where they discuss how gravity distorts space-time, and then you get to see a CGI animation of a large ball on a rubber like grid -drawn as a 2 dimensional analogy- and the ball is pushing down on the grid, making an indentation in it, and another, smaller, ball starts circling the bigger ball, eventually falling in towards the larger ball..
Isn't that like using gravity to explain the effect of gravity?

Re:Gravity model

[tylersoze]

It's only a very crude analogy. In reality, it's both space *and* time that are being distorted. Gravity causes all the "straight lines" (geodesics) in space-time to become curved. So the Earth orbits around the Sun and a thrown ball follows a parabolic arc because it's actually a "straight line" in space-time that gravity has curved just like a Great Circle on the Earth is a "straight line" (i.e. the shortest distance between two points) with respect to the surface of the Earth.

Re:Gravity model

[Neon Aardvark]

It's not trying to explain, it's an analogy that gives an example of how distortion in topology can affect motion.

The reason they use it in pop science programs is it's hard to visualize 4 dimensions of curvature.

Re:Gravity model

[cowscows]

Well if it's a CGI animation, then you're not really using gravity, you're just using fancy rendering. But ignoring that technicality, it's not really that much different than using a substance made out of molecules to build a scale model of a molecule. You're just using what's available to you in order to make a simplified model. There's not any easy and intuitive way to represent some aspects of physics in a manner that relates directly to the normal human experience of the universe. So you have to make a simpler model that starts to bridge the gap between how things appear to work at the scale of a human being and between the physics going on that are generally only visible at vastly larger or smaller scales.

So in the rubber sheet grid example, what's actually happening is that you're using gravity as generally experienced by humans (things roll downhill) to demonstrate some of the more fundamental aspects of that gravity (mass bends space).

Re:Gravity model

[Fluffeh]

and then you get to see a CGI animation of a large ball on a rubber like grid -drawn as a 2 dimensional analogy

Actually, it's a four dimensional analogy.

You have your x/y dimensions (forwards/backwards,left/right) as noormal, but they have flattened the z (up/down) as it's not important for the visualization. Now, instead of there being an up/down they have used that axis to show gravity.

Trying to draw something in four dimensions and hoping that the audience watching the show will make heads or tails of it would be like trying to nail jelly to a tree.

Re:Gravity model

[inertialFrame]

It's only a very crude analogy.

That's a good point, and it should be elaborated as the proper response
to cyberchondriac.

cyberchondriac identifies the grid-bent-by-balls as "the current popular
gravity model". It is in fact a popular model, which I remember from
watching PBS even as far back as the 1970s. The good thing about this
model is that it allows one to visualize how a mass both distorts space
and moves in response to the distortion caused by another object. But
its goodness as a model of gravity ends there, in part due to
cyberchondriac's astute observation that it makes use of gravity to
explain gravity. Still, the model is not bad because it uses one aspect
of gravity (that it is nearly uniform near the surface of the Earth) to
explain a *different* aspect of gravity (that distortions caused by
multiple objects can interfere with each other and lead to motion).

In reality, it's both space *and* time that are being
distorted.

Not quite. In reality, the best model that we have is general
relativity, according to which both space and time are being distorted.
But this is not to say that space and time are being distorted in
reality, because we will never know for sure what's going on in reality.
That is, a scientific theory (like general relativity) can never be
proved true, though it can be proved false. Who knows? General
relativity might be ruled out by some future experiments and replaced
with a fundamentally different view of gravity.

Re:Gravity model

[Chris Burke]

Isn't that like using gravity to explain the effect of gravity?

Sure, but it's just an analogy. It's not supposed to explain why masses warp space-time, only to show how a mass causing space-time to warp gives rise to effect we call gravity. In the analogy, the curvature of the space-time sheet is caused by gravity pulling downward on a ball to create the curve. In the reality the analogy is supposed to represent, the curvature of space-time is gravity. The analogy just gives you an easy way to ignore the "why" that theory can't answer, so you can focus on understanding the effect.

If it makes you feel better, you can just ignore the gravity-pulling-the-balls-down part of the analogy, and replace it with a simple assumption that a ball on the sheet causes the sheet to bend, and that other balls tend to move towards "low" spots in the sheet, with no explanation for why this happens.

Re:Gravity model

[bonch]

It's just a convenient visual model to explain the idea of gravity distorting space-time.

Re:Gravity model

[myowntrueself]

Isn't that like using gravity to explain the effect of gravity?

Would it make you feel better if, instead of the demonstration being done on the surface of the Earth under gravity, the demonstration was done in a centrifuge in a space craft?

Ie it isn't gravity thats deforming the rubber sheet, its 'centrifugal force'? :)

Re:Gravity model

[rubycodez]

I'm confused by this attempt at nailing jelly to a tree. Is that like a car with back-up lights that are so strong they push the car forwards?

Re:Gravity model

[ravenshrike]

Is it winter? Cause then nailing jelly to the tree would be quite successful.

Re:Gravity model

[Anonymous Coward]

Gravity causes all the "straight lines" (geodesics) in space-time to become curved.

Mass/energy causes the lines to be curved. Gravity is the effect of objects following these curved paths.

Re:Gravity model

[Spinalcold]

On a grande scale general relativity holds true. It's on a quantum scale that it's flaws start to show, this is why so many scientists have given their lives to trying to find the so called "theory of everything". The model that describes all the known forces.

Re:Gravity model

[Kashgarinn]

"Isn't that like using gravity to explain the effect of gravity?"

- well, not quite. The demonstration is a very simple model, not of how gravity really works, but a simple model created to demonstrate graphically what's going on.

Basically they tell you this: 1: imagine an infinite 2 dimensional plane 2: imagine that all objects have a downward force onto this plane, but movement in X and Y axis is completely free 3: image that big objects curve the plane itself.
- That means that objects affected by the downward force of the plane, and are affected by the curvature will seek the lowest energy point available.

It's not how gravity really works. There isn't a "plane" in RL which affects us, it's that space itself is being influenced by the objects in it making objects with mass attract each other.

No one knows how this is happening, as no one really knows what space is and how space relates to the "human-measurable energy" in the universe.

There definitely is a correlation between space and matter and energy, but no equations or theories I know of to this day try and explain what it is, as it is nigh-impossible to understand what's happening.

Things like detecting gravity waves will help, but we really have no way of measuring "space" in any form except via gravity changes.

Re:Gravity model

[inertialFrame]

We cannot ever rightly say that general relativity is true, for it is a
scientific theory. A scientific theory is not something that can be
proved true, though it can be proved false.

In the hundred years or so since Einstein's introduction of general
relativity, no observation has produced data that would rule out general
relativity from its status as a candidate for the true description of
gravity. So in a loose sense, it still "holds true". But such wording
can be subtly confusing and, in my opinion, should be discouraged.

No experiment---not even any experiment related to quantum
mechanics---no experiment has exposed flaws in general relativity. It
is well known that general relativity and quantum mechanics are
incompatible. They cannot both be true. Still, no experiment yet
devised has been able to rule out either of those great theoretical
foundations of modern physics.

A theory of everything would need to be inconsistent, in some sense,
with either GR or with QM or with both.

those weren't gravity waves

[stoolpigeon]

it was the pure amazement of my high school teachers that I was graduating. I was pretty shocked too.

Re:those weren't gravity waves

[Anonymous Coward]

After all the booze, dope, pills, women, and men, I'm surprised you graduated too.

I detect gravity waves all the time

[KiwiCanuck]

using my tin foil hat.

Not really.

[AltGrendel]

They're showing it in two dimensions, when it's actually happening in four. Try and think about that, but be careful. Your head might explode.

Re:Not really.

[Neon Aardvark]

They're showing it in three dimensions. We humans can visualize up to 3 very well. Adding another gets complex.

Re:Not really.

[tylersoze]

Actually you could probably visualize a simple case of one dimension motion with a traditional 2D space-time diagram (1 spatial + 1 time dimension) and curve that into three dimensions. You could at least visualize why a dropped ball would accelerate downwards along a straight line. Starting at 0 velocity (a straight line upwards along the t-axis) that "straight line" would start to curve in the direction of gravitational source, which translates into an increasing velocity (the slope of the curve).

Re:Not really.

[tylersoze]

It's even worse than that. To visualize a curved 4-dimensional space you'd need 5 dimensions to embed it in. Not to mention the fact that time is a different type of dimension so distances are measured differently in space-time. t^2 - x^2 (or "proper time", the time a object would experience traveling along that line) instead of pythagorean x^2 + y^2. So the distance between all points along a light cone is 0 and every outside is imaginary!

Re:Not really.

[Anonymous Coward]

The Human (3D life form) eyes only see in 2 dimensions. You see 2 flat plans if you have 2 eyes. To truly see in 3 dimensions you need to be a 4D life form. Anyone here know what "ever 17" is?

Re:Not really.

[poopdeville]

Open your eyes. Visualize all the four-dimensional space you want.

Re:Not really.

[Punko]

BZZT the human body is a 3D object, but exists in time. i.e. the human body exists in 4D - You are a 4D life form. If you wish to state that eyes see a 2d plane, they also see it as it changes in time, i.e. 3D 2 in space, 1 in time. Watching a movie is a 3D experience. Watching a 3D movie is a 4D experience

Re:Not really.

[Neon Aardvark]

Er, no, you don't "truly" see anything. Your brain forms a representation of reality based on sensory input. In the visual side of that, the spatial representation is 3D.

Furthermore, you don't "see" in 2 dimensions, in your understanding of the word (which is kinda meaningless, cf visual illusions, hallucinations etc), because of the parallax effect afforded by having two eyes.

Also, the complete internal representation of a thrown ball is fundamentally 4 dimensional (3 spatial + 1 temporal). But it's hard to visualize curvature of 4 dimensional spacetime.

Re:Not really.

[Anonymous Coward]

Er, no, you don't "truly" see anything.

Yes, I do.

Your brain forms a representation of reality based on sensory input.

Yes. That's what "see" means. So why did you claim that I don't "truly" do it?

Re:Not really.

[Anonymous Coward]

Which proves that we exist in 5 dimensions?

And that a sixth dimension does not exist because we can't visualize 5 dimensions?

*head explodes*

Re:Not really.

[Neon Aardvark]

Because you stated that we only see in 2D, at each eye. My point is that seeing occurs internally, in the brain, in the form of a model of reality based on sensory input. Which is 3D.

Re:Not really.

[Anonymous Coward]

The point is that we don't have to embed 4-space in 5-space to visualize 4-space. There is such a thing as "intrinsic geometry", and we use it to visualize 4-space every day.

Poor guy

[markov_chain]

What are they going to name the gravity SI unit, Webers? Right...

Re:Poor guy

[Anonymous Coward]

What are they going to name the gravity SI unit, Webers? Right...

How about 'Joes'? I hate the way first names are always neglected in SI jargon.

In 1987, Joe Weber, a physicist ...

[b4dc0d3r]

Why wouldn't you say Joe Weber discovered this, instead of some random physicist? Is his name Joe Weber or is that just what people called him?

I don't know anyone else named Joe Weber so you would not have to say Joe Weber the physicist to clarify either, although I appreciate the additional information. I would have said maybe a dog called Joe or a robot called Joe, but it sounds awkward and a bit insulting talking about people.

Me, I'm a poster called b4dc0d3r - you don't know if this is a person or machine or bitrot. Joe Weber on the other hand, identifies the person, instead of the watery fleshbag it walks around in. Sure he's dead now, but he apparently didn't get the respect he deserved while alive so let's try now that he's wormfood.

Must be having my manperiod, thanks for reading, burn my karma if you wish, carry on.

Re:In 1987, Joe Weber, a physicist ...

[DamienRBlack]

His name isn't actually Joe Webber, do some research before bitching. You might also try giving the summery benefit of the doubt.

Re:In 1987, Joe Weber, a physicist ...

[Anonymous Coward]

I almost modded this Insightful. Then I saw "manperiod" and changed my mind.

Some more info

[photonic]

I don't know the fine details of Weber's experiments, but I believe his 2 meter metal bar was operating at room temperature, so he was severely limited by thermal noise. His claimed strain sensitivity (delta L / L) was on the order of 1e-16. There are currently a small number of resonant bars operational which are kept at just a few Kelvin. They reach a sensitivity around 1e-21 in a narrow band and have not measured anything during the last ~5 years, so Weber's claim is highly unlikely. I am involved with one of the big interferometric detectors, which use vacuum tubes of several kilometers and reach sensitivities at the 1e-22 level over a broad bandwidth. If the astrophysical models are right we should be able to detect something within the next 5 years.

As already mentioned in a previous comment, the article is somewhat speculative and it is a little bit late to verify the experiment. The standard accepted practice for claiming the detection of a GW is to observe the event with at least 2 detectors which are separated far enough to not measure the same external disturbances (but preferably 3 or more spread around the world so that you can do proper triangulation of the source). One single glitch might be a cosmic ray, lightning, dust falling before your detector, an earthquake, an instrumental error, anything. We see more of those than we like. One glitch measured at different observatories within the time it takes to travel at lightspeed (a few ms) at different observatories around the world might give you a nobel prize.

One book that is high on my 'to read' list is Gravity's shadow, which supposedly describes not only Weber's experiments, but also its reception by the scientific community and the eventual downfall of Weber's reputation.

Re:Some more info

[Gregory Arenius]

"eventual downfall of Weber's reputation."

I think this type of thinking is a problem with the scientific community. It prevents people from admitting mistakes and moving on. If someones hypothesis is wrong that shouldn't be the end of their reputation. It doesn't necessarily make them a bad scientist and shouldn't be mean the ruination of their careers and the destruction of their reputation. Whats important is the process. Its quite possible that with limited data two different possible hypotheses could present themselves. If later data proves one right and one wrong that doesn't make the person who tendered the wrong one a bad scientist. This type of think should change.

Cheers,
Greg

Re:Some more info

[mbone]

It's when you don't admit that you are wrong that your reputation suffers.

Re:Some more info

[hscroot]

Marcia Bartusiak's book "Einstein's Unfinished Symphony" details a good bit of the controversy surrounding Weber's "discovery"...he wasn't exactly working in a vacuum. There were other detectors up at the time and none recorded anything to correlate his findings. It is doubtful that his bars were special. He got tagged for everything from being outright dishonest to having poorly written computer applications in use to sort through his data. As it stands, even with the advanced interferometers up today, it would take one of the stars within 10 light years of us to suddenly collapse into a neutron star for any of them to register something....and that is unlikely. I'm not holding out hope that a terrestrial based pair will ever work as anticipated. It may take a much larger set built in space before the sensitivity is sufficient to detect a gravity event beyond something truly massive and/or very close by....

Re:Some more info

[bitrex]

which use vacuum tubes of several kilometers and reach sensitivities at the 1e-22 level over a broad bandwidth.

I can't wait to put those in my next DIY phono preamp project! Are they available with gold plated pins and cryogenic treatment?!

Re:Some more info

[John Hasler]

> The standard accepted practice for claiming the detection of a GW is to observe the
> event with at least 2 detectors which are separated far enough to not measure the same
> external disturbances (but preferably 3 or more spread around the world so that you can
> do proper triangulation of the source).

How many such detectors were there in 1987?

Re:Some more info

[HuguesT]

Hello Photonic,

Can I ask a question ? If I understand well, LIGO works by assuming GW will contract one arm of the laser path and simultaneously expand the other. I understand how this could be detected

However this sounds oversimplistic. I've tried to work through one of the more recent paper (nov 2007) describing the apparatus, but I cannot find a good description of what I'm looking for.

To me a GW will not just locally dilate or contract space, but *spacetime*. Correct or not ? in the latter case how can a system embedded in spacetime detect its own Lorentz-like contraction or expansion ? It's all relative. Intuitively to me LIGO should only be able to detect not the actual contration / expansion of spacetime but only the kind of secondary, tidal effect that this contraction/expantion creates.

In other words, picture a person falling into a small black hole of a few solar masses. As the person falls into the BH they are being contracted in the directions perpendicular to the fall, and expanded in the direction of the fall. However a person would not feel these effect directly as since this is spacetime which is contracted/expanded, they are contracted/expanded along with it and so fell no special "pressure". However they would definitely feel the *gradient* of spacetime expansion/contraction in the form of tidal effects. In the case of the fall into a BH these would eventually become very strong.

However in the case of LIGO I can only picture these effect as being extremely weak. Is that why GW are so hard to pick up?

Does any of this make any sense ? Thanks for your time.

Re:Some more info

[photonic]

I am sorry, but I am afraid I cannot answer your question, this requires a pretty good understanding of general relativity. If I understand you correctly, this is exactly one of my own questions, namely why a passing GW would extend and contract space time including the mirrors, but would not change the 'optical path length' that is used to probe that distance with a laser at the same time. As far as I understand, this description is not true so we are measuring the full contraction of space time (or rather the difference between contraction between the two arms, read up on the transverse polarization of the waves), and not some second-order effect.

I am merely an experimental physicist that knows a thing or two about how to build such an interferometer, I have to trust the theory guys on this issue, as I have to trust the astrophysicists on the predicted rate of stellar fireworks (so that I am not wasting my time waiting for a once in a million year event). At the same time, they have to trust us experimentalists that we can actually measure such tiny distances without being overwhelmed by environmental disturbances.

GWs are so weak because they are only emitted in some special, asymmetric cases (like two neutron stars spinning around each other, or a spinning pulser with an asymmetric mass), because space time is really 'stiff' and because the catastrophic events that produce them are typically very far away (the distance at which we believe we can observe certain events is measured in mega-parsec).

Re:Some more info

[HuguesT]

Thanks for your reply, very informative anyway !

I sort of worked out a picture of the process in my mind, that would make sense if we are measuring first order effects. If GW are distorting spacetime they are in effect creating acceleration and therefore an actual force that can actually contract and expand the arm, as if we were simultaneously accelerating one arm of the aparatus and decelerating the other. This would indeed be measureable.

I don't know if the picture is correct. I have about 800 pages of MTW to work through before I can lay down the equations. I might never get there in fact :-(

Re:Some more info

[HuguesT]

Actually I've found my answer. I dug out my Misner-Thorne-Wheeler and found the answer on page 1014, diagram 37.3. Essentially, as a GW deforms an interferometer as it passes through it, the change in photons arrival time as they do a round-trip through the apparatus is non-local: it's cumulative and it's measurable.

Also GW are so usually weak because they result from "quadrupole" modes. The difference with electro-magnetic radiations is that *roughly* they result from negative charges orbiting positive charges (dipole radiation): each half the couple generate radiation: attracting or repulsing a test charge.

However for gravity, this is not the case. As gravity is only attractive, two masses orbiting each other will each generate waves that cancel each-other at long distances. Only the difference in time-of-arrival is measurable, which is much weaker in most situations.

I didnt "observe" them...

[alexborges]

I was in very very very "high" school and got to SURFem!

Anonymous Coward

[Anonymous Coward]

The paper is 5 pages long, with hardly any equations in it - there is no calculation of anything; just a big hand-wavy argument.

I'm not saying the guy is wrong, but he needs to do a hell of a lot better than this. Note that this is a pre-print and has not been published anywhere yet.

In the reference list he cites a guy called Preparata who was touting his "superradiance" theory in 1990 which would dramatically increase the sensitivity of gravitational detectors - no one bought it then, though the experimenters gave him a serious hearing.

In homage to this audience, may I suggest that he goes away and does a proper calculation ... on a beowulf cluster running linux! yay MS sux l44t h4xors rule !!

Light Speed

[Anonymous Coward]

It's the same as the people who believe you can't travel faster than light. Those that rely on old models, who can't see ahead of their own 2 feet. Those that believe they have learned enough are fools. They are mad that they aren't smart enough and as a result can't take credit. They can't think of their own theories. They think by tearing down someone else they make themselves bigger. These are the people that make discoveries through government legislation. "See how smart I am!", they proclaim. In reality they are only proving the other man.

See you in the past!

"Probably"?...

[sznupi]

Now, Slashdot is a US based site, but I'd guess you don't have to be so cautious among as...

You can safely say "almost certainly".

I have the solution!

[default luser]

All we need to do is hire Malcom McDowell to destroy the Sun! Just tell him that it will get him into the Nexus, he'll do it for free!

Too early to celebrate

[Anonymous Coward]

Since I work in gravitational wave physics, I read this article with great interest when I saw it. I'm afraid, the arguments are far from compelling. Some of the many problems:
1) The proposal for the calculation of the energy content of the gravitational wave is speculative at best. There is no agreed upon quantity for the energy of spacetime curvature, as the author himself points out.
2) The only calculation of the claimed non-linear enhancement seems to be in a paper which is cited by title and author only - there is no way to find and read the paper which this calculation was supposed to be in.
3) There seems to be some confusion between cylindrical gravitational waves and cylindrical gravitational wave sources. His method using approximate lie symmetries would correspond to the symmetry of the spacetime - ie the matter. I don't believe there is any way to produce cylindrical (or spherical) gravitational waves since you need a time-varying mass quadrupole to create them. Axisymmetric sources do not produce such waves. In short, there are exact (non-linear) solutions to the Einstein equations with no sources that have a gravitational wave-like nature, but they are not the solutions you get for (linear) gravitational waves from sources, and it is misleading to confuse them.
4) His supposition that 10% asphericity of the source is somehow related to a gravitational wave which is 90% spherical and 10% cylindrical is just bizarre. The gravitational waves from a rotating ellipsoid which has a 0.1 asphericity (assuming it is rotating about one of it's minor axes, since if it was rotating about the major axis it would be axisymmetric and give of no gravitational waves) is not really like an exact spherical wave or an exact cylindrical wave solution.

So, all told, this is still very early and very speculative. The safe money at this point is still that Weber (who had other irreproducable "detections") did not see a gravitational wave. While the non-linear nature of gravity would in principle allow for some sort of self-amplification, there has been to my knowledge no paper that claims to show this kind of amplification by four orders of magnitude available to view, let alone verified by other calculations or observations. Until something like that is available, this is at best speculation and hype, not science.

Re:Too early to celebrate

[shermo]

Spoilsport

Re:Too early to celebrate

[Poohsticks]

Wow - I need to go back to physics class. All I think when reading this post is:

1) Blah Blah Blah - curvature. I like curves on my women, but I have no idea what the hell he's talking about.

2) Blah blah blah non-linear enhancement. I swear he's talking about boob-jobs.

3) Blah blah blah - symmetry - blah blah blah - Einstein. WTF? I thought we were talking about boobs!?!

4)Blah blah blah asphericity blah blah. Now he's going on about asses? What the HELL is he talking about?

Re:Too early to celebrate

[Anonymous Coward]

"a paper which is cited by title and author only "

Web of Science supports this type of search.

He was right, you know.

[MillionthMonkey]

I remember because I was alive in 1987 and I felt it too when it happened. It was just as that star was exploding as a matter of fact. But it was hard to notice and you had to be paying really close attention. I take a lot of mind-altering drugs so I was able to sit still and concentrate on the physics.

Basically gravitational waves have a quadrupole moment so you feel your ears move apart slightly and your face contracting vertically. Then your face expands vertically as your ears move together. This happens a bunch of times and the effect is very slight- just a few femtometers- so you might not notice. But once you feel that cool wind of neutrinos flowing up from the floor and blowing through your hair, that should be a fairly obvious hint that a star is exploding somewhere and deserving of your attention.

Re:He was right, you know.

[OneSmartFellow]

But once you feel that cool wind of neutrinos flowing up from the floor and blowing through your hair, that should be a fairly obvious hint that a star is exploding somewhere and deserving of your attention.

That or your bong needs a reload !

Re:He was right, you know.

[Toad-san]

Wow, man! That is so ... so ... so ...

what were we talking about?

I don't think so.

[mbone]

I don't like to speak ill of the dead, so I will leave it at that.

Cool!

[GNUThomson]

That's great and all. Can I have my FTL drive now, please?

Re:Honor (fixed)

[Anonymous Coward]

[10:01:14] This is the sun that Earth is orbiting. It's a regular main sequence star with a core temperature of about sixteen million degrees and enough hydrogen to burn for another five billion years.
[10:01:27] <O`Neill> Yeah?
[10:01:30] <Jacob> We wanna blow it up.
[10:01:38] <O`Neill> Wow.
[10:01:42] <DanielJackson> That's, uh...
[10:01:47] <O`Neill> Ambitious.
[10:01:47] <DanielJackson> Ambitious.

( frackin' slashdot. If I'm posting with "Plain Old Text", then why are you interpreting my &lt; and &gt; chars? (yeah, yeah - own fault for not hitting preview and realizing I need to use 'Extrans') )

Four orders of magnitude is ...

[Purity Of Essence]

OVER 9000!!!

How did this not get tagged that?

Re:Four orders of magnitude is ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Because "Over 9000!" isn't funny. It was never funny. It will never BE funny. So stop trying to MAKE it funny.

Re:Four orders of magnitude is ...

[Purity Of Essence]

What part of "+0 Meh" don't you understand?

I saw the setup

[io333]

I saw the setup in the winter of late 1986. It was deep (many levels) under the physics department's machine shop, deep underground, at the University of Maryland & you had to go down several ladders to get there. It was hanging from the ceiling, big giant (I thought hollow, but apparently solid) cylinders of what looked like aluminum, hanging from thin wires. Does anyone know if it is still there?

Re:I saw the setup

[Anonymous Coward]

It's still there, but they've added a "Beware of the leopard" sign and removed the doorknob.

GW Speed.

[nateb]

I am really sad to not see any discussion wrt the speed of gravitational waves. The fact that the researcher allegedly detected the GW at the same time as the other researchers investigated SN1987A in the EM spectrum is significant. I shudder to think how complex our lives will be if we finally discover/decide that G and EM waves are similar. I am very interested personally in the effects that would have on long range (10-18 billion years) galaxy imaging... We could learn a lot from looking with an enhanced understanding at lensing, et al. Nate

We need a copy/paste response to this

[Anonymous Coward]

It's well established that Earth has been both much colder and much warmer at various times in the past.

It's well established that gases such as carbon dioxide trap heat more readily than our standard atmosphere.

It's well established that humans are venting large quantities of CO2 and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

It's well established that the levels of those gases in the atmosphere are increasing. That is to say that we, humanity, are changing the planet.

The only thing we have left to debate is the degree to which we are affecting our planet's climate.

Being skeptical about climate science is like being skeptical about evolution. They both simply describe change over time, and as such are rather nonsensical to argue against. There are of course refinements to be made to each field of study, but to toss everything out the window based on a few flaws is illogical bordering on insanity.

Joe Weber

[rotenberry]

In 1980 I met with Joe Weber at the Jet Propulsion Lab.

He had been reducing the noise in his experiment over the decades was still confident that the disturbances he was recording were gravitational waves.

Rather that being bitter about the 20 years of skepticism concerning his experiment, he was upbeat and optimistic. He understood that the theorists claimed that he could not possibly being seeing gravitational waves, but, as he told me, "You are not going to see them if you don't look!"

The reason he was at JPL was that John Anderson, Frank Estabrook, and Hugo Walquist conducted searches for gravitational waves using high precision spacecraft tracking during the 1970s and continue to search to this day.

Re:Honor (fixed)

[Hurricane78]

Because they got the "plain old text" & "Extrans" modes mixed up for years now! But nobody of those retards cares. Try it. I posted this as Extrans.