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Physicists Gear Up To Catch a Gravitational Wave
sciencehabit writes: A patch of woodland just north of Livingston, Louisiana, population 1893, isn't the first place you'd go looking for a breakthrough in physics. Yet it is here that physicists may fulfill perhaps the most spectacular prediction of Albert Einstein's theory of gravity, or general relativity. Structures here house the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO), an ultrasensitive instrument that may soon detect ripples in space and time set off when neutron stars or black holes merge. Einstein himself predicted the existence of such gravitational waves nearly a century ago. But only now is the quest to detect them coming to a culmination. Physicists are finishing a $205 million rebuild of the detectors, known as Advanced LIGO, which should make them 10 times more sensitive and, they say, virtually ensure a detection.
A cheaper way of virtually ensuring detection is to do the experiment in a simulation.
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So can anybody better versed in the physics fill this in a little: "an ultrasensitive instrument that may soon detect ripples in space and time set off when neutron stars or black holes merge".
If the machine goes ping, we infer the machine is working perfectly, and somewhere a neutron star or black hole has merged? But you have no independent confirmation other than the machine going ping?
So, set the damned thing to go ping, and claim you've found gravitational waves ... profit!!!
Seriously, I'm confused. Surely there has to be some other way to confirm the machine works than having it tell you it worked.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
I would be very excited to read about the detection of gravity waves. But man, talk about a setup for disappointment. I wouldn't use that kind of language with the theoretical stuff being in the state that it is.
"Here Lies Philip J. Fry, named for his uncle, to carry on his spirit"
A patch of woodland just north of Livingston, Louisiana, population 1893, isn't the first place you'd go looking for a breakthrough in physics.
Really? Where does this idea come from? Surely not from observation. Personally I find that I can get more done with fewer problems and overall less bullshit when I don't have a bunch of fat stupid sheeple Americans, in their gregarious crowd-herds, worrying about footbal, somehow believing there is any meaningful difference between the Demicans and Republicrats, and generally getting in the way because their obese gluttonous self-centered minds make them believe doorways and other high-traffic areas are the finest possible place to gather 'round and chat.
*Shockingly* we can have scientific breakthroughs in an area where this is kept to a minimum. Did that actually come as a surprise to anyone? On what grounds? In other news, dogs can run faster when you don't tie a stack of bricks to their heads.
Yeah yeah, ooooh that's negative and makes your widdle feelings feel bad, oh noes, now you have to mod me down because somehow that'll make it seem less true to you, yes that's very objective of you. But the average American is a fat, stupid, self-centered, childish fucking moron with no concept of priorities. That's a fact, I wish it weren't, but it is, and reality is best dealt with by first acknowledging it.
Is this a windup?
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
They've been working on that a long time. Brian Cox visited there in a 2008 episode of BBC Horizon. I'm sure you can find a video on-line.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/tvradio/programmes/horizon/broadband/tx/gravity/
Surfs up brah
I have a cloaca, you presumptuous clod.
I was waiting for a joke containing "your momma so fat" and "gravitational waves"...I leave here disappointed
A stellar collision in a galaxy far, far away, or a gravel truck driving down the other side of the street?
Physicists are finishing a $205 million rebuild of the detectors, known as Advanced LIGO, which should make them 10 times more sensitive and, they say, virtually ensure a detection.
That's if they even exist. Personally, I'd be more excited if they DIDN'T find any as that means there is something significantly wrong with their models, suggesting a whole new playing field yet to be discovered.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
That was a good article. Pretty long with lots of background info and details on how it works. My questions is simply this: why not put this thing out west somewhere (Death Valley, etc) where there is less human and natural vibrations to interfere with it?
Better known as 318230.
That’s a lot of bricks.
There's as much knowledge to be gained from a well-designed experiment that fails, as one that succeeds. They should ALREADY have found gravitational waves with the multiple space- and Earth-based experiments that have been run, particularly with all the big number-crunching on old data that is happening now.
What do we learn about the nature of the Universe when THIS experiment also fails to provide evidence of waves of gravitational force propagating through it?
Quant gravity for the simply minded, wavy gravy with extra dense super trans positional sauce within a grand unified field.
That being said I fully expect gravitational waves to be discovered.
I am not so sure. There have been other experiments that should have detected them, but didn't. If this experiment also comes up empty, then physics may be facing another Michelson–Morley moment.
I agree. Gravity waves are unlikely. In theory, we can test the idea with a direct experiment, but the cost would be in the multiple billions, and require spacecraft to loft a tetrahedral constellation of some very large masses, and then you'd have to fling another large mass at an appreciable fraction of the speed of light, probably via solar slingshot, and (effectively) have it "instantaneously appear" intersecting a non-orthogonal plane vector through the tetrahedral constellation. That'd basically give you a wave delta that you could see based on laser interferometry along the vertices of the tetrahedron.
Assuming gravity propagates at the speed of light as a force, rather than being an artifact of space-time, which would mean you don't get any waves. Which we've so far not been able to detect, probably because they don't exist. 8-).
There are no "gravitational waves", gravity does not propagate like electromagnetic radiation. Einstein was wrong.
A way cheaper still would have been to construct a Laser ENTERFEROMETER Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LEGO), an ultrasensitive instrument made of little extruded thermoplastic bricks. If they don't have one yet, I'm sure they'll have a kit to build one by Christmas, in toy stores and available at fine toy stores everywhere and online! Recommended for ages 25-75.
The article only talks about MIT history and laser inferometers (LIGO). It doesn't credit Louisiana State University's efforts to build resonant mass gravity wave detectors from the 1970s. By 1972, physics Prof William O Hamilton at LSU was working on a multi-ton aluminum bar and a He3 dilution cooler in what would become the Allegro graviy wave detector.
Some interesting history papers:
http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/pap...
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/g...
LIGO follows laws af nature.
The headline should have been: Physicists Gear Up To Catch a Gravitational Wave or more $$.
If the latest, rebuilt new better detectors do not detect a gravity wave, it will be concluded that more sensitve instrumentation is needed, followed instantly by more funding is needed.
what would the silver surfer be surfing on otherwise?
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
I have a cloaca, you presumptuous clod.
Keep it in the cloaca room.
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.