11–20 of 502 posts
> And then the ringing stopped as the two holes coalesced into a single black hole, a trapdoor in space with the equivalent mass of 62 suns. All in a fifth of a second, Earth time. Am I reading this correctly, that shortly after the detector came online we just happened to observe the exact moment a billion years ago that two black holes collided? Was that extremely coincidental? Or do these events happen all the tim…
I remember learning about the LIGO experiment back when it was being built, a decade ago, and at the time it seemed so amazing: a giant tube of vacuum, sealed underground and so sensitive that it could detect animals walking nearby, listening to the moving and twisting of space itself… I guess we're finally seeing that with immense human ingenuity and the most careful of engineering, the universe will offer its secre…
But yes, it's the fringes that we'll find new physics. It's not unlike the late 19th century when newtonian + E&M seemed to account for all there was to know.
There hardest thing in fundamental physics right now is to know what questions to ask. We've got answers that work for a lot of the biggest ones that the last 100 years have been spent developing and exploring.
I remember learning about the LIGO experiment back when it was being built, a decade ago, and at the time it seemed so amazing: a giant tube of vacuum, sealed underground and so sensitive that it could detect animals walking nearby, listening to the moving and twisting of space itself… I guess we're finally seeing that with immense human ingenuity and the most careful of engineering, the universe will offer its secre…
You forgot about dark matter.
And the devices required to probe Plank length/mass/energy are way beyond even our imagination.
I remember learning about the LIGO experiment back when it was being built, a decade ago, and at the time it seemed so amazing: a giant tube of vacuum, sealed underground and so sensitive that it could detect animals walking nearby, listening to the moving and twisting of space itself… I guess we're finally seeing that with immense human ingenuity and the most careful of engineering, the universe will offer its secre…
That's been going on for a few hundred years now.
Are gravitational waves supposed to be that weak or is it because of the distance between us and those black holes? Do they lose power as they travel through space?
Would it be possible to listen for information transmitted via gravitational waves? Would there be any benefit over radio?