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Reflected Gravitational Waves

Posted by kdawson on from the could-prove-useful dept.

WSOGMM sends in an arXiv blog post about reflecting gravity waves. The speculation is that reflected gravity could go some ways toward explaining the odd readings being returned by Gravity Probe B. "In the couple of weeks since he introduced the idea that superconducting sheets can reflect gravity waves, Raymond Chiao from the University of California, Merced, has been busy with a couple of buddies working out how big this effect is... Chiao and co. ask how big the effect of a gravitational wave on a thin superconducting sheet is compared to the effect on an ordinary conducting sheet. The answer? 42 orders of magnitude bigger."

5 of 329 comments (clear)

  1. Possible correlation? by ma11achy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    From the article:
    "If there were an obvious interaction between a superconducting films and gravitational waves, wouldn't Gravity Probe B have picked them up somehow?.....As it turns out, the experiment has been throwing out anomalous results ever since it was launched......The team has puzzled over them for years now....."

    I really do love those moments in science when something you have puzzled over for years may have an elegant answer after all.

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    1. Re:Possible correlation? by Kjella · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Yeah those moments are what you do it for... that and tenure :-)

      Tenure is what you get when your experiments go as planned. The Nobel Prize is when they don't.

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    2. Re:Possible correlation? by Paradise+Pete · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I thought the Nobel Prize is for when you make up something and get everyone to believe it as fact.

      That's an interesting idea you have. If you can convince enough people of it then you could win the Nobel Prize.

  2. Gravity wave detectors. by Therefore+I+am · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Doesn't this discovery also lead to the possibility of building super-sensitive gravitational wave detectors that really work....... Remember this - If you can't measure a phenomena, you have little hope of truly understanding it.

  3. Re:Reflected gravitational waves can be useful by Arimus · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If you can reflect it, you can make a curved "mirror" to concentrate it to a single point in space.
    If you can concentrate it, you can amplify it.
    And if you can amplify it, then maybe you could weaponise it

    Fixed with the more likely path.

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