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Scientists Struggle To Stay Grounded After Possible Gravitational Wave Signal (theguardian.com)
schwit1 writes with news that cosmologist Lawrence Krauss has set the scientific community abuzz by confirming a rumor floating around for the past several months that the LIGO experiment may have discovered gravitational waves.
The excitement centers on a longstanding experiment known as the Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) which uses detectors in Hanford, Washington, and Livingston, Louisiana to look for ripples in the fabric of spacetime. According to the rumors, scientists on the team are in the process of writing up a paper that describes a gravitational wave signal. If such a signal exists and is verified, it would confirm one of the most dramatic predictions of Albert Einstein’s century-old theory of general relativity. Krauss said he was 60% confident that the rumor was true, but said he would have to see the scientists’ data before drawing any conclusions about whether the signal was genuine or not.
But many scientists are trying to calm the hype. Krauss admits he hasn't spoken to anyone within the LIGO team. Further, to enhance the integrity of their work, the LIGO team will occasionally "purposefully inject false signals in to their data to test the sensitivity of their analysis techniques and to keep people honest." A LIGO spokesperson said, "We’ll certainly let you know when we have news to share."
I suggest a thick copper cable.
Is he confirming that the object of the rumor is true, or is he confirming that a rumor exists?
Hey, folks, gravity waves were already confirmed, the Nobel prize was already awarded:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
It is funny how experimental physicists get all excited about things that were confirmed by astronomy a while back.
Even if it does turn out to be true, what is Lawrence Krauss doing giving the game away on other scientists discoveries before they are published? This would be one of the discoveries of the decade and he has not done the work and has no right to announce it. Further, it could cause problems if the researchers do have a result and try to publish. High impact journals often have rules about not disclosing results before they appear in print.
If I were on LIGO, I would be righteously pissed at Krauss. If it's true, it's a total douchebag move to grandstand off somebody else's discovery.
"Scientists Struggle To Stay Grounded After Possible Gravitational Wave Signal"
Oh you, Slashdot...
Say again. Over.
rewriting history since 2109
My earlier rumor about LIGO has NOT been confirmed by independent sources. Stay tuned! Gravitational waves may NOT have been discovered!! Boring.
Well the article did say Krauss was "60% confident that the rumor was true". If you're quantum gambling, that's better than cat odds.
All modern detections are "indirect".
Did someone search through the jungles and return with a Polaroid photo of the Higgs boson? No.
The Higgs boson appeared as a tiny excess of a certain type of distribution of secondary particles from billions of high energy interactions. The boson itself was never seen or measured. It is possible that a different physical phenomenon or error was responsible for that tiny excess.
Just because you do it in a laboratory does not make it more "direct".
You obviously are not up to speed on PSR B1913+16.
The observations of PSR B1913+16 did not just fit models of gravitational waves, PSR B1913+16 was predicted to radiate gravitational waves. Using the configuration of the pulsars, astronomers made predictions decades into the future about how that configuration would change over time due to the radiation of gravitational waves. Short story: they nailed it.
Your comparing astronomy to a magic show demonstrates your vast ignorance of modern astronomy.
Of course my first thought was, "Their gravity experiment backfired on them, and now they are floating?".
Second thought was, "Awesome trick headline there /. Worthy of The Guardian. Nice to see editors here actually contributing something."
Third thought was, "Oh, of course. They took it verbatim from The Guardian. Should have known."
The measurements are exactly consistent with Einstein and no other theory. But they did not directly see waves in this project. The energy loss loss has to go somewhere with gravity radiation the best candidate.
You see possible signals. They usually want five standard deviations as proof, but start getting excited around three. Higgs went through several years of this.
There is an energy bump observed at the very top energy of LHC after its recent restart. This is a double photon decay mode, hinting at an unanticipated new force vector particle. people have speculated a hgiher energy Higgs or even a Graviton.
Or rather, no we can't. I'm convinced that gravitational waves exist, but at the same time, I'm convinced we can't currently detect them, or detect them at all.
no, I don't have a sig
Why did you waste my time with this possible hint about a maybe with no details from people who do not actually know anything?
But at what frequency? Energy is the cause of gravity. When a mass-energy event occurs, the gravity doesn't go away, it just suddenly moved away quickly. From a distant observer even the speed of light is slow. Would it even look like anything happened?