Does anyone else get a bit depressed when you consider how insignificant we are?
FWIW, I take some comfort in knowing that I can beat up the vast majority of gravitational waves.
Physicists Detect Gravitational Waves, Proving Einstein Right
131–140 of 502 posts
Re: Physicists Detect Gravitational Waves, Proving Einstein Right
#132Does gravity move at the speed of light?
The videos say the waves do move at exactly the speed of light. They are massless.
Re: Physicists Detect Gravitational Waves, Proving Einstein Right
#133Earlier quoted context omitted.
This thing was a billion light years away. Say it were closer; let's put it at a single light year away. LIGO measures wave amplitude, as far as I can tell, which goes down linearly with distance (unlike wave energy, which goes down quadratically, since it's proportional to square of the amplitude). So we could expect to see an effect about a billion times bigger. The detected effect was a change in metric of one par…
The longer the interferometer arms, the better you can do in sensitivity. The reason LIGO has 4000 m long arms is that it makes the experiment 4000x more sensitive than something you can do on a bench. (and their laser stabilization is excellent, improving things further)
Sure, but LIGO is sensitive at something like 1 part in 1e20, which is a lot more than 4000x better than 1 part in 1e6. I agree that their laser stabilization is likely much better, their vacuum is likely a lot better, etc. I was just surprised by how much better, I guess; 10 orders of magnitude is a lot.
Re: Physicists Detect Gravitational Waves, Proving Einstein Right
#134I 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 some…
Unfortunately not-entirely-unreasonable skepticism can be mistaken for hostility by people excited about a potentially groundbreaking result.
That said, it sounds like they did a lot more work to eliminate sources of error than you may be aware of. OTOH if seismic resonance was causing the correlation, there would probably be more time between the events at the two facilities.
Scientists will try to poke holes in these results while further experiments will try to corroborate them. Meanwhile laypeople will be introduced to more oversimplified and counterproductive ways to think about this stuff. Business as usual.
Re: Physicists Detect Gravitational Waves, Proving Einstein Right
#135I 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 some…
> That's not to say that what the phenomena measured -- the earth resonating That's not what the detector measures. RTFA.
> RTFA
Please don't be rude like that here. It breaks the HN guidelines:
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Your comment would be fine without that bit, and better still if it stated briefly what the detector does measure.
Re: Physicists Detect Gravitational Waves, Proving Einstein Right
#136Earlier quoted context omitted.
> No one would have looked at the first computer and envisioned an iPhone. Not really. Portable computers were envisioned quite a long time ago.
Not before they were solid state. Computers had their own buildings and relied on glass tubes for operation. Screens weren't on the radar. Operators were highly educated. But technology did bring us to a point where the vision became more focused, and led to what we have today. There are many possible paths to rebutting my statement, which to be clear is idle morning musing, but your objection doesn't hold water.
> Screens weren't on the radar.
Funny choice of words. Screens were "on the radar" systems which prompted the development of one of the earliest forms of computer memory. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delay_line_memory
(I don't know if anyone envisioned shrinking those vats of mercury down to pocket size, however.)
Re: Physicists Detect Gravitational Waves, Proving Einstein Right
#137> 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…
Excellent catch. That's damn suspicious.
Re: Physicists Detect Gravitational Waves, Proving Einstein Right
#138If they build a third observatory, can they triangulate where in the universe the events are occurring?
Re: Physicists Detect Gravitational Waves, Proving Einstein Right
#139Does this bring us any closer to warp drives?
Re: Physicists Detect Gravitational Waves, Proving Einstein Right
#140Does anyone else get a bit depressed when you consider how insignificant we are?
I have. There is just so much out there...
On the other hand, it's nice to know the world really does appear to be boundless. I mean in terms of the possible.
We aren't much, but we are here and it's a pretty awesome experience.
Maybe we need to be here, otherwise what is the point?
I like to think there are others too, thinking thoughts like we are. Maybe that is necessary too. Maybe nobody has reached a point in their development for more, or contact to make sense.
I find our time here and now bittersweet. So much is yet to be experienced and understood. But, then again, here and now isn't all bad. We have great science, new frontiers opening up all the time. Our stories of the future are fantastic, and there is still a lot of magic and wonder about us, the world, reality...
We may not see the best. In fact, I say none of us will, but right now is never dull.
I feel like we are just beginning to get a real grasp on reality. That seems powerful and exciting. We could have lived in much darker, harder, ignorant times.
These times may be seen that way too, or they may be a peak, with a decline to come. Nobody knows, and I like it that way.