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The Absurdity of Detecting Gravitational Waves (2017) [video]

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Re: The Absurdity of Detecting Gravitational Waves (2017) [video]

#3
Happy to see Veritasium getting some attention on HN. You may have seen his previous video from 2014, Facebook Fraud: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVfHeWTKjag

One of my favorite videos is on his alternate channel, 2veritasum. Survivor Bias: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Qd3erAPI9w

Re: The Absurdity of Detecting Gravitational Waves (2017) [video]

#4
I wonder if gravity wave detection could be ever be precise enough for communication.

I wonder this because it occurs to me that one possible answer to Fermi's paradox is that aliens don't use Radio or other EM to chat.

And maybe they don't leak it because they move energy and information around more efficiently than we do.

Re: The Absurdity of Detecting Gravitational Waves (2017) [video]

#5

I wonder if gravity wave detection could be ever be precise enough for communication. I wonder this because it occurs to me that one possible answer to Fermi's paradox is that aliens don't use Radio or other EM to chat. And maybe they don't leak it because they move energy and information around more efficiently than we do.

Even if tons of intelligent civilizations happened to be radiating gravitational waves (or some other form of radiation which travels at or very close to the speed of light) encoded with information directly towards Earth right now, it's very likely we'd never receive them in the next million years due to the vastness of the universe.

Re: The Absurdity of Detecting Gravitational Waves (2017) [video]

#6

I wonder if gravity wave detection could be ever be precise enough for communication. I wonder this because it occurs to me that one possible answer to Fermi's paradox is that aliens don't use Radio or other EM to chat. And maybe they don't leak it because they move energy and information around more efficiently than we do.

What would be the advantage of using gravity waves?

Re: The Absurdity of Detecting Gravitational Waves (2017) [video]

#7

I wonder if gravity wave detection could be ever be precise enough for communication. I wonder this because it occurs to me that one possible answer to Fermi's paradox is that aliens don't use Radio or other EM to chat. And maybe they don't leak it because they move energy and information around more efficiently than we do.

Your idea is actually used in "the three body problem" trilogy.

If you like that sort of sci-fi, read the book; it's worth it !

Re: The Absurdity of Detecting Gravitational Waves (2017) [video]

#9

I wonder if gravity wave detection could be ever be precise enough for communication. I wonder this because it occurs to me that one possible answer to Fermi's paradox is that aliens don't use Radio or other EM to chat. And maybe they don't leak it because they move energy and information around more efficiently than we do.

I’ve had similar thoughts and assume aliens would use something like lasers to have point to point communication rather than broadcast RF.

Of course for us we’d never detect those point to point transmissions unless we were incredibly lucky to be along the vector between two aliens communicating.

Re: The Absurdity of Detecting Gravitational Waves (2017) [video]

#10
post #6

I wonder if gravity wave detection could be ever be precise enough for communication. I wonder this because it occurs to me that one possible answer to Fermi's paradox is that aliens don't use Radio or other EM to chat. And maybe they don't leak it because they move energy and information around more efficiently than we do.

What would be the advantage of using gravity waves?

I was about to comment to state that there is no advantage because both gravitational waves and electromagnetic radiation travel at the same speed: "c".

But then it struck me, maybe there will be one advantage, EM can be absorbed, blocked and warped while gravitational waves are not affected by anything, thus guaranteed to deliver the message(?)

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