Initial Tests Fail To Find Gravitational Waves

eldavojohn writes that though gravitational waves are "predicted to exist by Einstein's Theory of General Relativity, the initial tests run by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory Scientific Collaboration (LIGO) failed to find anything. It doesn't disprove their existence although it does rule out a subset of string theory. From the article, 'For example, some models predict the existence of cosmic strings, which are loops in space-time that may have formed in the early universe and gotten stretched to large scales along with the expansion of the universe. These objects are thought to produce bursts of gravitational waves as they oscillate. Since no large-amplitude gravitational waves were found, cosmic strings, if they exist at all, must be smaller than some models predict.' The scientists working in Washington and Louisiana (in tandem to rule out flukes) will now move on to Advanced LIGO which will analyze a volume of space 1,000 times larger. If they don't find any gravitational waves in that experiment, the results will be more than unsettling to many theorists."

Comments

I think I see the problem.

[tygerstripes]

Have they tried turning it off & back on again?

Re:I think I see the problem.

[ledow]

Can't find the button that you have to hold for five seconds. Besides... would you want to press it? I can't guarantee that my laptop will turn on again next time, let alone the Universe.

Re:I think I see the problem.

[ionix5891]

Have they tried reversing the polarity of the main deflector array?

Re:I think I see the problem.

[Xanlexian]

Have they tried reversing the polarity of the main deflector array?

You're supposed to reverse the polarity of the neutron flow.

Re:I think I see the problem.

[morgan_greywolf]

Have they tried turning it off & back on again?

And now you know why LIGO doesn't hire engineers away from Microsoft...

Re:I think I see the problem.

[robot_love]

You fool! You'll destroy us all!

Re:I think I see the problem.

[Miseph]

Yeah, they turned it off and back on, but they forgot to blow out the cartridge! It's like they just don't know how these things work, didn't they learn ANYTHING in college?

Re:I think I see the problem.

[Eil]

It may be an intermittent Heisenberg compensator...

Re:I think I see the problem.

[Whillowhim]

I worked at LIGO Hanford a few years back before going back to grad school. Since it is essentially a scaled up prototype, new things were always being fiddled with and the device was very temperamental. If we could have blown the dust out of the cartage, we would have. How easy/hard it was to gain and hold lock (when the laser is resonating properly) varied on a daily or sometimes hourly basis with no obvious way to tell what was wrong this time.

As a joke, I put together an emergency kit for the control room. It consisted of:
1) one(1) cardboard box with "emergency locking kit" written on it. Also suitable for use as an altar.
2) one(1) rubber chicken for use as a sacrifice for any suitable god.
3) one(1) butter knife stolen from the lunch room.

To my knowledge, it was never officially used. But the rubber chicken did end up with some suspicious marks on its neck and the butter knife did end up with red marks along the edge. It was claimed to be accidental damage and a slip with one of the whiteboard markers, but I suspect something else was at play.

Everybody knows

[Vinegar Joe]

Gravity sucks.

Re:Everybody knows

[Anonymous Coward]

Gravity sucks.

It always lets us down

Re:Everybody knows

[Sinning]

Then it lets you down under.

Hex

[tygerstripes]

+++ Divide By Cucumber Error. Please Reinstall Universe And Reboot +++

Intelligent falling!

[blirp]

This is obviously because gravity does not exist, but the observed effect is a result of an higher intelligence pushing things down.

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/39512

Re:Intelligent falling!

[Anonymous Coward]

Or the fact that people on the other side of the world aren't falling off.

Re:Success!

[offrdbandit]

Any experiment that doesn't result in a large explosion is a failure.

Re:Linearization

[X0563511]

The, uh... differential manifold part...

Puslars

[bobbuck]

We know that pulsars conserve energy because they keep turning their lights off!

Re:Sending the theoreticians back where they belon

[4D6963]

I like to see string theory crumbling as much as the next man, but err.. that :

dark matter can be explained by the evolution of advanced technological civilizations based on *known* physics (through molecular nanotechnology and extreme engineering)

If given the choice between these two propositions, I think I'll stick with string theory and its 26+ space dimensions. But kudos to you for pioneering a new approach to astrophysics that consists in claiming "space aliens did it".

Re:Success!

[Anonymous Coward]

My advice to you is to stay out of medical research. Or at least keep a safe distance if you expect a positive result.

Re:what to do, what to do

[jackbird]

You just said what he said, but he used the language of science while you used the language of bonghits-in-a-dorm-at-a-good-college.

Re:Success!

[AdmiralXyz]

The next generation of scientists, brought up on Mythbusters, are going to be much more interesting than those in days gone by.

Yes! My theory still holds up!

[GodfatherofSoul]

I proposed the "really tiny strings" theory long ago that said that a really tiny string is attached between the gravitational bodies like the earth and the moon. Sure, some laughed and countered with their silly "spooling paradox" argument, but sometimes it takes decades to appreciate a true genius.

Re:Success!

[Anonymous Coward]

You learn things only once. Then you only refresh

Re:what to do, what to do

[4D6963]

Yep. OK, enough with ID vs evolution, let's move on to the other battlefront of the science vs faith war. Climate change!

Global warming, schmobal schmwarming! Temperatures have gone done for the last 10 years (facts here [wikipedia.org]), so everything is just fine, it's just evil liberals who hate our benevolent oil companies because they're in the pocket of Big Ethanol. Discuss.

Re:Here's some pedantry for ya

[The End Of Days]

Hey, I'm having a party tonight and I want to make sure it wraps up by 1 o'clock. Could you stop by at about 12:55 and bore everyone out of the place for me?

Re:what to do, what to do

[AshtangiMan]

Well played sir. I'd mod you funny but I'm a little pissed off about the coffee dribbling down my screen.

Re:what to do, what to do

[Anonymous Coward]

The time has come for all who worship the false spaghetti god to tremble before the power of the Divine Lasagna Entity! Behold his many layers of wisdom and power! Watch as he smites those who worship the lesser pastas with his molten cheese!

Re:Linearization

[Alamais]

Citation please.

After reading this post a couple of times, I've decided that the first line is not referring to the parent, but is rather an abstract of the remainder of the post. It all makes sense now.

...Just in case anyone else was wondering.