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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."
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.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
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?
The problem is that you can't exactly reproduce a supernova..
If they're anything like light, they're both.
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.
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.
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
No, that is exactly how science is supposed to work.
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.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
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.
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?
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.
I am one of many. My idea is not unique, nor do I expect my voice alone to sway you. I speak in a chorus of opinion.
"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
Can you name one?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
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.
No one has a right to their *own* opinion. They have a right to the TRUTH.
It's when you don't admit that you are wrong that your reputation suffers.
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.
Learn something new.
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.
i wish i could stop