It's Official: LIGO Scientists Make First-Ever Observation of Gravity Waves (economist.com)

A few days ago, we posted reports that a major finding -- the discovery of the long-predicted gravity waves -- was expected to be formally announced today, and reader universe520 is the first to note this coverage in the Economist : It is 1.3 billion years after two black holes merged and sent out gravitational waves. On Earth in September 2015, the faintest slice of those waves was caught. That slice, called GW150914 and announced to the world on February 11th, is the first gravitational wave to be detected directly by human scientists. It is a triumph that has been a century in the making, opening a new window onto the universe and giving researchers a means to peer at hitherto inaccessible happenings, perhaps as far back in time as the Big Bang. Reader DudeTheMath adds: NPR has a nice write-up of the newly-published results: "[R]esearchers say they have detected rumblings from that cataclysmic collision as ripples in the very fabric of space-time itself. The discovery comes a century after Albert Einstein first predicted such ripples should exist. ... The signal in the detector matches well with what's predicted by Einstein's original theory, according to [Saul] Teukolsky [of Cornell], who was briefed on the results." Update: 02/11 18:08 GMT by T : Worth reading: this letter, inspirational and informative, from MIT president L. Rafael Reif, about the discovery. (Hat tip to Brian Kulak.)

Comments

Re:Cool!

[greenfruitsalad]

i saw a dude waddling out of McDonalds the other day. could've proven gravitational waves right there and then.

What they really discovered

[goombah99]

The real announcement is that they studying gravity waves using a device intended to electromagnetically reduce the weight of a suspended object. IN the process they discovered a strange mold that normally takes 1 year to grow a layer had completely covered their apparatus overnight. They built a larger machine and crawled inside of it with a tank of oxygen and found themselves at next thursday. Thus they could not actually make the announcement until time catches up with them. They could not go back in time to announce it since this was the first time abe turned on the machine (aaron secretly could but then their current selves might got to the same meeting and this might change the time line destroying the future Thursday.) So they have to wait till time catches up to them. Fortunately Aaron started a failsafe before he left so no worries.

1. gravity waves
2. time travel
3. ?????
4. Primer

Re:Cool!

[bluefoxlucid]

This isn't hard. Don't say stupid shit.

I suspect Einstein had a version of my own internal simulator, one he put to use more effectively than I. Given a strong grasp of physics in that era, he could have readily generated new theories based on a few seconds of examining a behavior in his head--a behavior which would be perfectly in line with reality, even if he didn't understand it--and start working out the mechanics. All he'd have to do is keep his mouth shut until he had a solid model, and then note any flaws or limitations to avoid being outright wrong.

Einstein declared quantum physics a load of horse shit. Given a strong grasp of modern theory, I bet he'd emit a ton of useful conjecture--most of which would be right. I know my own simulators work faster-than-realtime and with perfect accuracy on physics (real and video game, only to the extent I have contact experience) and economics; Einstein's stream of groundbreaking theories shows he was never shy about running the system in his head and explaining how it works, and he was *very* good at it.

I wish I could simulate other people better. I can do it pretty well, but not well enough to implement strong social control. I *have* been able to injure people by determining their psychological weaknesses and attacking them with a few well-placed words, but it's nothing like some of my prior acquaintances could do, gaining the favor of literally anyone they spoke with. I've got some of the theory; I may have to go out into... public, I guess... and just chew through people at bars and book shops, talking to random strangers until I can consistently draw friends. It seems like a huge waste of time; nobody's goal-focused, and they idly chatter without a point.