Only that in space, it drops even faster: The wavefront carries the same energy, but spread out over ever increasing length/area. For gravitational waves (or radio waves) they form spheres, not circles, and the surface size scales with r^2, not r. (Also water waves are /complicated/)
Right, but LIGO detects wave amplitude, not wave energy, which goes down as 1/r.
Oh, interesting point! I now have to wrap my head around that information transfer normally means energy transfer...
Everyday we're getting sun rays https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crepuscular_rays Why are we surprised at gravitational waves when 2 black holes collided?
We actually aren't surprised. This confirms a theory we've been reasonably confident about for about 100 years.
This is less "wow, look at what an unexpected result we found!" and more that we finally managed to measure something we've been looking for.
From the abstract of the paper, energy equivalent to three solar masses were radiated away in gravitational waves. That's a simply incredible amount! Possibly stupid question: Given how far away it was, and that the inverse square law applies, would the effect of these waves be visible on the human scale if we were closer? We can see the effects of the compression of spacetime with LIGO after all, so presumably we co…
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…
> 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.
There were handheld calculators doing advanced math, clearly some kind of computer, in Asimov's Foundation around 1940.
From the abstract of the paper, energy equivalent to three solar masses were radiated away in gravitational waves. That's a simply incredible amount! Possibly stupid question: Given how far away it was, and that the inverse square law applies, would the effect of these waves be visible on the human scale if we were closer? We can see the effects of the compression of spacetime with LIGO after all, so presumably we co…
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)
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.
I agree that you do make a point. There is really no way for us to know what is to come. Sometimes we think we are looking at a square, but it really is a cube and we are just unable to look beyond are current perspective for whatever reason. I would say one obstacle that stands in the way of "spying" on objects moving on the Earth's surface is that the gravitational wave energy emitted by accelerating objects on Ear…
ok, here's an idea that someone might either build on or refute: would it be possible to build an amplifier of gravitational waves using some arrangement of microscopic and/or macroscopic objects having a "known" defined 3D physical relationship (say in a lattice), and under known interactional forces (including EM). You would have to take into account the uncertainty principle in system parameter measurement, though the propagating gravitational wave should have a deterministic effect on the potential well and thus the quantum wave(s) of the system(s). Thus, amplification through propagation in the space-time of the system might be feasible. This is of course all hand-waving, and very rough.