Physicists Detect Gravitational Waves, Proving Einstein Right

It just depresses me that I'll never reach an Einstein standard in any thing I do :/

On the other hand, we may well detect the 3 solar masses radiated away as energy. That decreases as an inverse square law, so as one solar mass is about 10^30kg, and 1kg gives off about 10^17 J, we're talking about an explosion releasing something around 10^47 J. For comparison, a 1 kiloton nuclear bomb gives off about 10^15 J.

So, inverse square that explosion... 1 light year is about 10^16m, so we square that and get 10^32m, so we're now talking about ... 10^15 J.

So, unless my maths is all off (which is possible), if this happened about a light year away, whoever's on the side facing towards the blast wouldn't get to observe very much because they'd feel as if a 1kt nuke just went off above their head. Not a great way to start the day.

Chances are it would wipe out life on Earth too, through the ensuing side-effects like lighting the atmosphere on fire, sterilising half the planet, significantly heating up the oceans, possibly even stripping part of the atmosphere away, etc.

For a great novel based around a strikingly similar premise to what was just observed (and the main reason I even bothered to calculate this), Diaspora by Greg Egan is a fantastic book.

>> that shortly after the detector came online we just happened to observe the exact moment a billion years ago that two black holes collided?

Counterintuitive, but yes. Because it happened billions of years ago, it happened a long long way away. The sphere of objects billions of years away/ago is far larger than those closer to us. So such a detector should be detecting exponentially more very old objects than new ones. Given the rarity, I would expect nearly all detected events to have happened long long ago in galaxies far far away.

Also, models point to such events being more common in the distant past where there were more black holes (primordials) floating around than there are now.

If we can keep our heads cool, and priorities right. We can get very significant.

Wherever we went on earth we've colonized quickly. If we can do that to space, universe might be our backyard.

I am a bit skeptical of the conclusion given the methods. Here, there's no observable phenomena independent of the test apparatus that corresponds to the proposed cause. The conclusion is circular.

1. Theory predicts gravitational waves when massive objects collide and that the gravitational waves would have an effect that could be measured by the experimental instruments.

2. The experimental instruments measure something.

3. This is considered proof that massive objects collided.

4. Therefore gravitational waves exist.

To reframe my skepticism, the experiment measures something. The conclusion as to what it measures, however, is unsupported by statistical inference or direct experience of a causal phenomenon. That's not to say that what the phenomena measured -- the earth resonating -- is uninteresting or unimportant or even inconsistent with the theory of gravitational waves.

Yet, I don't find the possibility of a geophysical cause -- i.e. that the earth maintains consistent dimensions at a sub-atomic scale -- the many orders of magnitude less likely than gravitational waves necessary to reach a conclusion. In particular, I find natural fluctuation to be more likely because the experiment acknowledges its existence.

For a point of comparison, consider the Perihelion precession of Mercury that provides evidence in support of general relativity. The theory was used to predict the results of an observable event. The experimenters trained their telescopes at a particular location and particular time and observed phenomena consistent with a prediction based on the theory. The same is true of the Higgs. In both cases the experiment is of the form "when X, I will observe Y."

The reasoning here is:

  If X, then Y.
  Y, therefore X.

It treats an ordinary implication as mutual implication.