Gravitational waves detected 100 years after Einstein’s prediction – video folows
American University contributes to noise-reduction technology in LIGO detectors
For the first time, scientists have observed ripples in the fabric of spacetime called gravitational waves, arriving at the earth from a cataclysmic event in the distant universe. This confirms a major prediction of Albert Einstein’s 1915 general theory of relativity and opens an unprecedented new window onto the cosmos.
Gravitational waves carry information about their dramatic origins and about the nature of gravity that cannot otherwise be obtained. Physicists have concluded that the detected gravitational waves were produced during the final fraction of a second of the merger of two black holes to produce a single, more massive spinning black hole. This collision of two black holes had been predicted but never observed.
The gravitational waves were detected on Sept. 14, 2015 at 5:51 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time (9:51 UTC) by both of the twin Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) detectors, located in Livingston, Louisiana, and Hanford, Washington, USA. The LIGO Observatories are funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), and were conceived, built, and are operated by Caltech and MIT. The discovery, accepted for publication in the journal Physical Review Letters, was made by the LIGO Scientific Collaboration (which includes the GEO600 Collaboration and the Australian Consortium for Interferometric Gravitational Astronomy) and the Virgo Collaboration using data from the two LIGO detectors.
American University and partners fine-tune optics
American University is a member of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration. AU currently is the sole university in Washington, D.C. to participate in LIGO and is led by Gregory Harry, assistant professor of physics.
“The detection of gravitational waves marks the beginning of a new way of observing the universe,” said Harry, one of the authors of the detection paper published in Physical Review Letters. “Now that physicists have evidence that LIGO detectors can detect gravitational waves, it is exciting to think about how much we will likely learn about the nature of gravity.”
At AU, researchers work to fine-tune the optical materials used in the LIGO detectors. Mirrors used in the detectors have reflective coatings. Over time, researchers realized the coatings limited the detectors’ sensitivity because of thermal vibrations. Harry’s team helped to develop improved coatings that allowed for greater sensitivity. Experimental research by Harry’s team will continue to focus on new and improved ways to further reduce noise.
Since 2011, more than 10 AU undergraduate students have participated in LIGO research at AU, including two who contributed research to the gravitational waves discovery and are now physics Ph.D. candidates working on LIGO at universities in Scotland and New York. The AU LIGO group is also involved in public outreach and is developing an “Optics Olympiad,” which will bring D.C. public schools students to campus to share in the excitement of LIGO research.
American University is proud to have worked with many outstanding scientists at other universities to have brought LIGO to the sensitivity to make this detection. The list includes Georgia Tech, California State University-Fullerton, Columbia University, Stanford University, University of Oregon, University of Maryland, University of Michigan, Carleton College, University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, Penn State University, Hobart & William Smith Colleges, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Trinity University, and Whitman College.
Teamwork leads to discovery
The discovery of gravitational waves was made possible by the enhanced capabilities of Advanced LIGO, a major upgrade that increases the sensitivity of the instruments compared to the first-generation LIGO detectors, enabling a large increase in the volume of the universe probed–and the discovery of gravitational waves during its first observation run. The U.S. National Science Foundation leads in financial support for Advanced LIGO. Funding organizations in Germany (Max Planck Society), the U.K. (Science and Technology Facilities Council, STFC) and Australia (Australian Research Council) also have made significant commitments to the project. Several of the key technologies that made Advanced LIGO so much more sensitive have been developed and tested by the German UK GEO collaboration. Several universities designed, built, and tested key components for Advanced LIGO: The Australian National University, the University of Florida, Stanford University, Columbia University of New York, and Louisiana State University.
LIGO research is carried out by the LIGO Scientific Collaboration (LSC), a group of more than 1,000 scientists from universities around the United States and in 14 other countries. More than 90 universities and research institutes in the LSC develop detector technology and analyze data; approximately 250 students are strong contributing members of the collaboration. The LSC detector network includes the LIGO interferometers and the GEO600 detector. The GEO team includes scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics (Albert Einstein Institute, AEI), Leibniz Universität Hannover, along with partners at the University of Glasgow, Cardiff University, the University of Birmingham, other universities in the United Kingdom, and the University of the Balearic Islands in Spain. Significant computer resources have been contributed by the AEI Atlas cluster, the LIGO Laboratory, Syracuse University, and the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee.
LIGO was originally proposed as a means of detecting these gravitational waves in the 1980s by Rainer Weiss, professor of physics, emeritus, from MIT; Kip Thorne, Caltech’s Richard P. Feynman Professor of Theoretical Physics, emeritus; and Ronald Drever, professor of physics, emeritus, also from Caltech. Virgo research is carried out by the Virgo Collaboration, consisting of more than 250 physicists and engineers belonging to 19 different European research groups: 6 from Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) in France; 8 from the Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN) in Italy; 2 in the Netherlands with Nikhef; the WignervRCP in Hungary; the POLGRAW group in Poland and the European Gravitational Observatory (EGO), the laboratory hosting the Virgo detector near Pisa in Italy.
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To learn more about the discovery, visit the official LIGO Scientific Collaboration website at http://www.ligo.org
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No matter how closely it agrees with certain observations, Einstein’s theory of gravitation has to be wrong because the whole concept of space-time curvature has no basis in fact. There is no such thing as space-time. Time is in no sense akin to space, and the idea that a 4-dimensional agglomeration of the two is the substrate of physical reality is just a reification of Cartesian mathematical techniques.
It is not possible to travel through time, to dilate time, or to create closed regions of “space-time.” The fact that Einstein’s theory allows for such things should have been a reductio disproving the theory, but instead modern physicists have elected to bite the bullet and have populated their imaginary universe with such exotic objects and properties. As a result, physics no longer describes reality. The two major thought currents in modern physics, relativity and quantum mechanics, are little more than the self-deconstruction of a whole mathematico-physical thought-world which has spent its explanatory power.
Pithy note, Being and Time. I found this interesting, and rather directly on point.
Wave Bye-Bye https://www.thunderbolts.info/wp/2016/02/12/wave-bye-bye/
“LIGO is said to measure ripples instigated by the vibration in spacetime as they pass through the Earth. What effect are those ripples supposed to cause? An expansion of the planet smaller than one-ten-thousandth the diameter of a proton (10^-19 meters).”
Hmmm. Possible, certainly. Probable? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite_monkey_theorem
@ur momisugly Being and Time:
I get that much of the theory can seem entirely counter intuitive (as it also does with quantum mechanics), but the time dilation effects (among other relativistic effects) are proven every day with the GPS & GLONASS systems, which in order to provide accurate location & timing services must account for the fact that the clocks on the satellites are actually running at a measurably different rate from otherwise identical clocks down here in Earth’s gravity well.
That said, no one suggests (at least that I’ve heard) that General Relativity (nor quantum mechanics either) is a “complete” theory of everything; at the very least GR and QM principles are BOTH exploited daily in hand-held electronic devices (are you holding a cell phone?) even though the two theorems cannot co-exist mathematically. Reconciling the two is still a “Nobel Prize, is that all you’ve got??” kind of dream for theoretical physicists & cosmologist everywhere, as the gal/guy who comes up with it will easily supplant Einstein as The Name in Science for centuries to come.
Trust me: they’re working on it! ^_^
Space time curvature is just a mathematical model. It need not be “real” in any meaningful way, it just needs to be predictive, and that it is, spectacularly so.
It is possible do dilate time, we’ve shown it experimentally.
New Horizon’s superb observation of Pluto/Charon and now this, both great long term observational science ventures.
Now, how often is an event like expected to occur, and is amplitude an indicator of distance/time. ?
Alan Stern is a great publicist for New Horizons, trickle feeding the media as more downloads come in, perhaps he can help LIGO spin the publicity out.
This technology is very similar to Fibre Optic Gyros (FOG) which count ‘light beats’ as the gyro, in a plane or ship, rotates to a new heading. Interestingly, they require Kalman filters to detect/remove the ‘beats’ causes due to the earths rotation. A stationary ship or plane on the ground will still be ‘moving’ through space due to the earths rotation. I wonder if LIGO uses Kalman filters etc to remove ‘beats’/’pulses’ from their detectors due to earths rotation?
Well, I see waves of mas/inertia in the fabric, or Aether, of space. Not sure if I would call that waves of gravity. But close enough for a start at understanding the true nature of space, mass/inertia and gravity. After 100 years of scientific proof that Aether does not exist. They now have proof that it does. After using a more sensitive version of the 100 year earlier failed experiment! I would guess that settled science is not quite so settled…pg
If I’ve understood this correctly, colour me sceptical. They say that “the detected gravitational waves were produced during the final fraction of a second of the merger of two black holes” [my emphasis] and they say that Advanced LIGO enabled “the discovery of gravitational waves during its first observation run” [my emphasis]. Now either there was a huge coincidence, that the signal from a split-second event a billion years ago just happened to arrive during A-LIGO’s first run, or there must be a huge number of black holes colliding. I’m not saying they’re wrong, I’m just not convinced. So far, it feels a bit like the faster-than-light neutrino that wasn’t – genuine research done very carefully, but not quite carefully enough. It would be nice if it’s me that’s wrong.
Oops, format error. Italics should end before “Now either there was ..”.
it’s disgusting to read these comments.
please read: http://milesmathis.com/liego.pdf
maybe you understand that.
What was detected?
Seismic noise is a problem because the detector is near an interstate highway and a rail line. When trains went by, the interferometer was knocked out. Nearby logging is also a continuing problem. The team claims that dampening and filtering systems solved those issues. The laser mirrors deteriorated, requiring two of them to be removed and replaced. Wasps made nests in the beam tubes. Their waste caused a leak in the vacuum system. The wasps were evicted. The point here is that LIGO is a device concept that is rife with potentially fatal flaws. Were all of those flaws, as well as others fully rectified?
@Tiburon, et alia:
“Seismic noise is a problem… (et cetera)”
One of the reasons there are TWO detectors (not just one) is to see if the signals seen at one location are also seen at the other. At the scale of sensitivity in which they are designed to operate (theoretically!) the only events capable of being seen by EITHER detector in the first place would necessarily be visible to both, thus allowing scientists to eliminate any signal not recorded in both places.
As for the other issues, whether foreseen or unexpected, you’d best believe that a thorough review of the data & methodology will be conducted, because NO one in cosmology wants to be part of the “Second Coming of BICEP-II.”
Even if those flaws were rectified, so what? They still have no way to even recognise most of the interferences that are bigger than the waves they wish to detect much less dampen them out or subtract them from readings.
Even if those flaws were rectified, so what? They still have no way to even recognise most of the interferences that are bigger than the waves they wish to detect much less dampen them out or subtract them from readings.
Yet your ear can dig out a conversation at a loud party, or hear a mistake from one trumpet at the orchestra. It’s just (graduate level) math, but the principle is that same. Given enough data you can pick out a tiny signal from a mountain of noise. Our algorithms can now exceed what 100s of millions of years of evolution have developed, and we also can calculate their limits of resolution, if we are willing to do so.
They have petabytes+ of data that spans the entire spectrum they need to explore, versus global temperature, TSI, volcanism, etc. where we have maybe gigabytes of of data over time spans too short and area coverage too sparse to determine any of the frequencies of interest in time or space.
In addition the gravity wave hypothesis involved a fairly simple, non-complex system, versus global climate which is a massively complex system with feedbacks we don’t understand and can’t measure well enough even if we do understand the mechanisms. It also happens that the climate models are now falsified but few are willing to admit it.
That’s a world of difference. Actually it’s a universe of difference.
They predicted a result from a relatively simple hypothesis, ran two different experiments, and were unable to falsify the hypothesis. This is real, Popperian science. The skepticism here is unwarranted, and does us a disservice because the informed skepticism of CAGW is proper, but uninformed skepticism of this is not proper.
Peter
Silly people… that was just God sneezing.
Interesting… (actually quite disappointing) that no mention of the Russian contribution to this effort is made here
Kip Thorne has been magnanimous in crediting Russian scientist’s contribution to this – why no mention?
Pardon me if I don’t swoon, but there’s a disturbing precedent. A few years ago it was published that CERN had accelerated some particles faster than the speed of light. Such a paradigm-breaker got hundreds of physicists to go over the results with increasing fine-tooth combs until the cause was finally found — an impossibly obscure anomaly in the time-keeping system (or something like that). But without all that highly-focused effort, the anomaly would have stayed concealed. Now we have a new result based on interferometric results of the order of 1/10000th of a proton’s width — well, what anomaly is in the works this time? The difference is that this time — since these results confirm GR instead of refuting it — there will not be hundreds of physicists going over it with a fine tooth comb. So sorry, but color me UNCONVINCED.
NZ Willy, an interesting point. The earlier great experiment using an interferometer conducted by Michelson, and later Morley in the 1880’s, could be said to be an eight year long experiment as they progressively refined their apparatus. You could plausibly say that this experiment continued into the 1920’s as other scientists attempted to replicate or falsify the results. Why the continued investigation? The results conflicted with prevailing wisdom at the time. The present result tends to confirm prevailing wisdom, and it’s unlikely to be subject to quite as much skepticism, as you say.
Seismic noise is a problem because the detector is near an interstate highway and a rail line. When trains went by, the interferometer was knocked out. Nearby logging is also a continuing problem. The team claims that dampening and filtering systems solved those issues. The laser mirrors deteriorated, requiring two of them to be removed and replaced. Wasps made nests in the beam tubes. Their waste caused a leak in the vacuum system. The wasps were evicted. The point here is that LIGO is a device concept that is rife with potentially fatal flaws. Were all of those flaws, as well as others fully rectified?
The major premise is that black holes do not exist, despite the logical fallacy that claims they do.
https://www.thunderbolts.info/wp/2016/02/12/wave-bye-bye/
“the detector”
There were two detectors, thousands of miles apart, that detected the same signal.
You haven’t even begun to do your homework.
So EM radiation cannot leave a Black Hole but gravitational radiation can. Anyone got a succinct explanation of why not one but the other?
@ur momisugly Mike Borgelt:
The current understanding is that while the photons which carry light (EM radiation) have properties which can be described as “wavelike,” in terms of their travel, they take paths more like those of “particles.” (This is why describing photons is often termed a “duality,” since light can act as either a wave or a particle based on which specific property is under observation.)
Despite being mass-less, the straight-line path of a given photon can be bent according to the curvature imposed by the local gravitational field. This has been shown empirically by observation of distant stars as their light passes close to the limb of the Sun, as well as by the images of gravitationally-lensed galactic objects seen by the HST. In theory, if the gravitational field is strong enough, then space becomes curved to the point of not allowing the light to escape the area (hence the term “black hole”).
In the Standard Model of particle physics, it is postulated that there may be a “photon” which transmits the gravitational force between objects which have mass. No one has found this particle yet, nor has anyone proven it cannot/does not exist — another Nobel Prize out there, if someone can do either. Regardless, observations confirm that the gravitational force is transmitted without attenuation regardless of any intervening matter or energy (coincidentally? at the speed of light), which confirms that whatever is transmitting that force cannot be the same type of “photon” as that which carries EM radiation.
@ur momisugly Smokey
“In the Standard Model of particle physics, it is postulated that there may be a “photon” which transmits the gravitational force between objects which have mass. ”
This is the quantum field theory description of the graviton – the boson which mediates the gravitational force, analogous to the photon as the mediator of the EM force, as you say. Same but different 🙂
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graviton#Comparison_with_other_forces
@ur momisugly Alan Ranger: You are correct, Sir!
It’s absolutely true that the term for a “photon which acts as a force mediator” is “boson,” that such a boson which mediates for gravity is called a “graviton,” and that the Standard Model doesn’t “postulate” the existence of gravitons (as I falsely indicated) so much as it “tolerates” their existence… if they even DO. ^_^
Trouble is that the graviton is not renormalizable and at high (Planck) energies, the quantum field theory used to formulate the standard model goes haywire when it meets general relativity. Interestingly, the (original) string theory, which failed comprehensively to explain the behaviour of hadrons, kept spitting out a massless spin-2 boson … a graviton! This has no doubt what’s kept string theory alive for so long, in spite of it not making a single testable prediction so far (AFAIK).
Hey, we have no idea what gravity is..or how it works.
But we found waves in it.
hurray!
+ 1
“Hey, we have no idea what gravity is..or how it works.”
Same with magnets.
Yeah, my long-suffering domestic partner is often asking me physics question which take the form:
“so…what exactly IS gravity/force/inertia/energy/an electron/light/or suchlike”
This has been occurring for years. But I am happy that she takes an interest.
It doesn’t matter how many times that I explain that physics doesn’t really bother with “what is it” questions.
Physics is only interested in what does it do.
What is, questions are asked and answered only in popular science and the media.
This has lead to a very widespread public misconception about what is…the point of physics.
He wrote: “… we have no idea what gravity is..or how it works.”
Our knowledge of physics is highly overblown. (and I was guilty of teaching it once)
Yeah, what it is or how it works. Those are the wrong questions.
We can’t answer those questions with any meaningful answers.
But we do know what it does.
Even now, what it seems to do to light glancing the sun or to GPS satellites.
As well as grasping that a brick thrown directly in the air above oneself will likely return a few seconds later, at approximately the same speed, but traveling in the reverse direction.
I find stuff like that helpful and instructive.
So, we have some grasp of what gravity does.
In fact, one interpretation would be that the word “gravity” is a name for what gravity does. And not really a name for a thing or mechanism at all.
Since what it does is all that we see or know. 🙂
I have no idea if they detected or not what they say, we just have to take their word for it. Only a year or so we remember another fundamental discovery, “the faster-than-light neutrino’ which subsequently proved to be inaccurate.
What is necessary here is that all raw data is made available to all interested academic and other institutions, many might be keen to prove them wrong. If they failed to do so, then we have a result.
Since it is now matter of independent analysis of data, for start I suggest that Steve McIntyre requests the data and have a go.
What is necessary here is that all raw data is made available to all interested academic and other institutions, many might be keen to prove them wrong
it’s petabytes of data. Good luck downloading that.
I don’t remember any scientist claiming that they had found a “faster than light” neutrino.
I remember scientists asking other scientists where the error might have been introduced.
It was MSM that splashed the misleading headlines.
And then of course there was the following joke:
The bartender looked up, and asked “What will you have.”
Two neutrinos enter a bar.
I find it so fortunate that just when they had started looking, they found what they were looking for. This reality is truely amazing.
I know I know, you wouldn’t see it if you weren’t looking but still…
It’s always in the last place you look.
What a load of bollox, all I can see is research hunting for more funds, sorry state of modern astronomy…
OMG this single thread is literally unraveling years of great work from WUWT. It is now apparent that many of those posting at this site are simply ignorant witch doctors who will shriek and gibber at anything scientific at all because they basically don’t understand and don’t like science.
http://www.sciencealert.com/live-update-big-gravitational-wave-announcement-is-happening-right-now There were two detectors – count ’em two (2) – separated by 4,000 km. The signal was detected by both and with the correct timing to account for the light speed propagation of the signal between the two. The signal at each detector is as close to identical as any scientist in their wildest dreams could wish for and is at a 5.1 sigma level. The only way this result could in principle be improved is by having two independent measurement techniques deliver the same result as is the case at CERN using the ATLAS and CMS detectors to confirm each others results. Sadly at this time laser interferometry is the only game in town for this kind of work and we will just have to be satisfied with multiple independent detection events. After all, we’ve been doing it for decades with water Cherenkov detectors in neutrino astronomy.
In addition the signal maps extraordinarily well onto computer simulations of an event of this type and magnitude.
Now I know we are all really, really skeptical of models here and that – or so I thought – is because modeling of highly nonlinear complex dynamical systems with unknown parameters and feedbacks – like the climate – is extremely problematic to say the very least. However, that does not mean that such is the case for modeling the predictions of general relativity relating to compact baryonic masses in the vacuum.
Knock it off – please guys – it’s embarrassing.
cephus0 – A number of people here have expressed scepticism, because it seems so extraordinarily unlikely that the new equipment would detect a gravity wave on its first run. Can you tell us what the odds against one of these events occurring in a tiny period is? In spite of the signal matching the expected signal, what is the possibility that they have actually detected something else? (Obviously something from space or maybe inner Earth if it is detectable at 2 places 4k km apart.).
We have all seen too many scientific stuffups to accept this finding uncritically. There was the Ozone Hole, which supposedly miraculously began at the moment that equipment was first set up to detect it. There was the man-made global warming period which miraculously is undetectable from the preceding period. I’m sure others could add a few dozen more to the list. So please, instead of remonstrating and accusing sceptics of ignorance, how about a bit of patient and detailed explanation. A discovery of this importance deserves no less.
@ur momisugly Mike Jonas:
A number of people here have expressed scepticism, because it seems so extraordinarily unlikely that the new equipment would detect a gravity wave on its first run.
LIGO has actually been operating off & on for well over a decade. This latest result comes after a number of modifications which have damped out previously-encountered “interference” as well as significantly heightened its sensitivity as a detector. As for the odds, well, odds don’t really prove anything much in this case, since you’re supposedly working with a detector that can span the observable universe looking for such events: the odds are “astronomical” in both directions — “Super-rare, may I introduce you to Super-sensitive…” (You know. ALLEGEDLY.)
As for accepting the result “uncritically,” all the announcements I’ve read say that the team alone has announced that they’ve found the alleged waves; no one else has announced any validation or verification that I’m aware of. I hope they have really found GW, because if so the AWESOME factor is stupid-high, but the whole thing still does have to be verified & validated. Those of us “space nerds” who witnessed the BICEP debacle remember all too well what happens when “new discoveries” in astro-physics & cosmology are simply accepted as rock-solid Truth without cross-examination and independent validation.
Smokey – If, as you indicate, a gravity wave is a very rare occurrence, then isn’t it a bit of a coincidence that as soon as the equipment was made more sensitive there was a gravity wave coming its way right on cue – a gravity wave that occupied a specific fraction of a second in a billion-year period for that particular black hole. This is where the story simply seems too good to be true. If, on the other hand, there’s a black hole somewhere doing this split-second thing every year (or month, or however long it was that the fixed equipment was operating) then it’s much more credible. Somehow, I doubt the latter is the case, because if it was then they would very likely hae seen a second one by now – and reported it which they haven’t done (?). So I have yet to be convinced.
Mike, you said:
Somehow, I doubt the latter is the case, because if it was then they would very likely have seen a second one by now – and reported it which they haven’t done (?). So I have yet to be convinced.
I have no problem with not yet being convinced; at the very least, we still need to find a way to perform independent confirmation of these results, which is going to be … let’s say “difficult”… for a while, at least.
As far as follow-on detections, and in re: LdB’s comment below, stay tuned!!
Mike Jonas
Smokey (can’t do much about wildfires)
Hi , First what we think or expect, can change with a blink of an eye. Just add new information and shake well
Yeah we thought these events were rare. But they seem to have had a total of three “hits”. One on sept14 then on,oct and dec. (2015). Maybe our assumption of “rare” was to rare. Look at the estimates of the age of the universe back in 1980 vs now. Next the frequency of double stars. Everything is a work in progress,, isn’t it fun?
I turned my first telescope to the heavens at age 11, over 40 years later everything is still shiny and new.
michael
@ur momisugly
Mike Jonas
“Can you tell us what the odds against one of these events occurring in a tiny period is?”
The “experts” indicate that LIGO, now in its new “advanced” form, might look forward to detecting several black hole mergers per year. That it detected one so early is not surprising at all.
“OMG this single thread is literally unraveling years of great work from WUWT. It is now apparent that many of those posting at this site are simply ignorant witch doctors who will shriek and gibber at anything scientific at all because they basically don’t understand and don’t like science.”
Very poetic, and accurate.
seaice1 – I’m very happy to have someone provide the answers to my questions and concerns (see my other comments), so please do that instead of saying how stupid people are who don’t see what you see.
Mike Jonas. I was not refering to your comments in particular. I just thought cephus0’s turn of phrase was pleasing, and also accurate. If you don’t understand something then it is reasonable to ask questions. It is not reasonable to dismiss the findings as nonsense. A little humilty is called for in assuming that those who have spent decades researching something might just know a bit more about that thing than the layman, however intelligent and experienced in other fields.
An example “What a load of bollox, all I can see is research hunting for more funds, sorry state of modern astronomy…” And I did not have to hunt far for that example.
If they had said something like “I don’t understand how someone can accurately measure less than the width of a proton” that would have been reasonable, and something to which those with more specialist knowledge could respond. But the instinctive dismissal of anything that is not understood is accurately summed up by ” many of those posting at this site are simply ignorant witch doctors who will shriek and gibber at anything scientific at all because they basically don’t understand and don’t like science.”
I often do respond with technical information where I can add something. This is outside my expertise, so I will leave it to others.
No you’re embarrassing. Everything you just said makes the discovery less convincing not more. They can’t measure to that accuracy let alone stop interferences much less subtract them from readings.
Stop funding the “settled climate science” and put that money to real science like research in gravitational waves, which opens a new window searching the outer space.
Space research yes, research into finding gravitational waves, no.
This is just as bad as the quartz gyroscope experiment. The actual experiment was a failure but they messed with the resulting data for 5 years and massaged it and claimed success.
The truth was there were so many influences not quantified that the results of the actual experiment were useless. So they played with the data for half a decade and claimed BINGO 😀
There are too many positive results in scientific studies in some fields, especially the theoretical, it’s scary
There have been no gravitational waves detected.
More interpretation by relativists of data as positive.
The signal is thousands or possibly millions of times smaller than the interference between the detectors and the signal. Just like WMAP this is a farce.
Scepticism is essential to the scientific method.
Cynicism is not.
These comments indicate to me that the USA has lost a generation of scientific minds.
Agree entirely, but think the blame falls directly on the science community itself.
We have seen almost 30 years of catastrophic AGW ‘climate science’ being shoved down the public’s throat while the various science bodies either ignored the abuses or even endorsed them. The public is not deceived and the effect is to discredit the entire science enterprise.
MY guess is that these disbelieving comments are illustrative of the beginnings of the backlash. If indeed we get a colder world over the next couple of solar cycles, scientists are going to be endangered species.
sorry about the caps on MY, two finger typing often leads to glitches.
“The public is not deceived and the effect is to discredit the entire science enterprise.”
I agree that the cAGW myth played a large part in discrediting the scientific enterprise, but “science” has been guilty of many sins in the modern western world other than just cAWG. Consider the bogus “studies” done by big phrama, agriculture, medicine, and others. With the main objective being to push whatever pill or product they want to push onto the public, the people have a right and duty to not believe “scientists” without a heavy, heavy dose of skepticism. And the record in my lifetime of “science” is that cynicism is warranted, especially by any “science” done with government funding.
“These comments indicate to me that the USA has lost a generation of scientific minds.” I do not think that is true, but it is true that the scientific minds are not well represented here.
Actually it is reasonable for many not educated in a field to be “skeptical” By this I mean to say “maybe so, maybe not so.” If one admits they do not have the knowledge and expertise to understand the claimed result, then it is not rational to say they should accept said result on blind faith.
Their skepticism is still warranted as long as they are equally skeptical of their skepticism. In other words they are saying, “I do not know, and until confirmation from numerous others, and until practical results confirm, I simply do not know and they may or may not be on to something.” (Most of those skeptical here are in essence saying this, and WUWT is NOT shamed in any way by this)
It has been pointed out that the deeply flawed field of CAGW science has made many skeptical of science in general. This is the “cynicism” of some comments. That is, IMV, understandable, but not necessarily warranted here, and yet it may be warranted. The dark side of human nature, greed, lust for power over others, plus simply confirmation bias, peer pressure, and need for recognition and monetary success, can and does affect fields other then CAGW. So, while I think cynicism can go to far, and some are over confident in their skepticism, I see the cynicism itself as rooted in practical experience with human nature.
My view of such a physics claim is to remain skeptical (in the maybe so, maybe not camp), recognize my own limitations in comprehension of such a field, ( I still do not know what space is expanding into) read from more educated sources such as Lubos Molt who have no personal dog in the hunt, strive to understand possible implications and any potential practical uses, and nothing further, as long as their is no attempt to make massive political and social change and demand to tax the air we breath.
If one admits they do not have the knowledge and expertise to understand the claimed result, then it is not rational to say they should accept said result on blind faith.
It is also not rational to say that they should reject said result based on their ignorance.
But, that said, it seems to me that the reactions by many here are not based on rationality anyway.
Leif – I would appreciate someone addressing my concern, which is that it is a big coincidence that a gravity wave appears just as the equipment is first able to see one. An event which occupies less than a second in a billion years per pair of black holes sounds pretty rare. If so, it’s remarkable that one turns up exactly on cue. Would you care to put my mind at rest?
There are many more events in the pipeline to be published. A bit of luck doesn’t hurt either.
Mike Jonas, also the detectors would have to be on the side of the Earth that is facing towards the event !!
Leif – “Many more events” will do the trick! I’ll look forward to reading about them. What is the expected frequency of such events?
Marcus – I doubt that Earth would interfere much.
several per month. based on preliminary data.
Every time I take a look at a good print of the Hubble Deep Field picture; which was just a picture of an empty speck of space, apparently up near big dipper country, I almost can’t believe that this picture could have been taken at any tiny black speck of emptiness out there and produced the same sort of picture.
Given that multiple infinity of weird stuff that is out there, I can’t help but believe that before we know it, we are all going to have our own personal gravity wave detectors.
Well that’s a total joke of course, but just look at how fast the rate of discovery of exo planets has progressed. There’s now so damn many of them, we will pretty soon be starting to look for places that don’t have exo planets.
So I’m quite sure that this new gizmometer, is going to find stuff all over the place. There’s just too much stuff out there to not having incidents happening all the time.
As I understand it, the interferometer or interferometers, actually have quite a field of view. They are in effect a kind of Antenna, with a size that enables gravitational waves in the correct “band” to be detected to some extent.
So it is not like someone just accidently pointed a telescope at some point in the sky and found himself looking at the only alien being out there. This thing has a useful field of view, and if they can detect in other ways, possible events that might get ugly, they can orient it correctly for best results.
And as they have said, they have learned a hell of a lot about how to squish noise in these things, so we can only guess as to how much better they can make them.
So yes I do think this is not unlike the first radio telescope discoveries, that only led to better RTs and more exciting discoveries. Well Radio Telescopes led us to the little bang’s exiting whimper, that added knowledge to what we believe about the origin of everything.
I think I’ll go and get a beer and say a toast to AE. Jolly good show there mate; you were correct.
G
seaice1 says:
…it is true that the scientific minds are not well represented here.
Starting with your own comments. As a True Believer parroting the “dangerous man-made global warming” Narrative, you are hardly representative of scientific skepticism, are you? Nope. Not at all.
My scepticism isn’t directed at the gravitational waves existence, but I am somewhat puzzled by the extreme accuracy of the phase shift measured (x thousands of proton’s diameter),
http://youtu.be/YkWiBxWieQU
I am somewhat puzzled by the extreme accuracy of the phase shift measured (x thousands of proton’s diameter),
Do you know how Interferometry works? Until you do, you don’t know how to be an informed skeptic.
Let’s just take basic geometry. A target, a kilometer away magnifies a 10 picometers delta at 1 meter out by how much? Hopefully you can answer that question. Anyone who’s sighted in a scope on a rifle can answer this question. Now reverse that equation. If I can resolve 10 picometers at 1 kilometer, what type of change can I estimate at 1 meter out?
(I picked 10 picometers because that’s routinely done in modern semiconductor manufacturing. I’m sure physics folks have sensors 100x beyond that).
Peter
“””””….. (I picked 10 picometers because that’s routinely done in modern semiconductor manufacturing. …..”””””
Peter,
I’m under the impression that current production semiconductore devices such as microprocessor or memory chips have minimum feature dimensions of about 25 nanometers. When I last was designing ICs, the smallest feature size was 800 nm, with increments of perhaps 100 nm. That was not the state of the art at the time, but since it was for linear CMOS, smaller features were not required or useful. Noise considerations dictated against smaller structures. I don’t think the best was better than 1/3rd of the size I was using.
So I’m intrigued as to what features of a modern production IC are as small as 10 picometres.
That would be 10 picons I presume.
G
Not being a scientist I can only post this URL as a good read and containing a history of previous findings on gravity waves plus what purports to be another explanation for the new findings.
http://mileswmathis.com/liego.pdf (sorry, not able to give a live link)
I am pleased the “real” scientists over the last 100+ years didn’t just accept the consensus that Einstein is brilliant but went on to prove his vision.
THIS NEEDS AN EXPERT INDEPENDENT LOOK INTO
I superimposed signals from two locations Livingston, Louisiana, and Hanford, Washington in such a way that time scale grids coincide
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LIGO.gif
Two ‘chirps’ are distinctly different to arouse more than just curious scepticism. If I posted graph like this our resident expert Dr. Svalgaard would call DK syndrome crackpot’s correlation.
We need Steve McIntyre onto this.
Over to you Dr. Svalgaard
vukcevic—
Thanks for the above
I can see what you are saying. By comparing the two chirps, it has been determined that they are from the same source. By aligning the chirps at various places along the chirp line, it is easy to make a comparison.
From a link given here at WUWT they have been using the instruments and a computer program to do just what you have done in a matter of minutes. Apparently they have detected two of these chirps Oct 12 8:21-11:46 and Dec 26 1:29-4:55.
I went back in my records for those days and can see events of extreem noise. Trying to make something out of it would take two setups monitoring 24/7 just as they have been doing.
So- I hope that this lesson in GW theory does not distract from the research (or cause a knee jerk) on GW. There are just too many co-incidences that have occurred within a short period of time for me to believe.
And BTW, JM
Don’t go away, change yur “como se llama” and we will know it is you. You are just too intertaining and helpful.
Dr. Svalgaard
“The point is that the predicted waves matches the observed waves and there is no requirement for synchronization as the orientation of the two instruments are different.”
That is surely a joke, have you forgotten to put /sarc off
No way two gravitational waves traveling billion^(of whatever) miles and for millions^(of whatever) years, should arrive on the territory of USA within few microseconds at two different frequencies.
Doc you are good scientist, what happen to your obligatory scepticism at any new scientific claim, until at least the experiment has been verified either by another event or the independent analysis.
Or do you think this could be another of “variability is driven by a complicated non-linear system of internal stochastic variations” ?
Indeed it might be the case that I don’t know what I am talking about, a minor matter, but problem is that you know what you should be talking about, but you do not.
They arrive just when they should. The two instruments are oriented in opposite directions [on purpose] and are distance from each other, so you must invert the signal from one and shift it to account for the distance. If you do that, they match very well, as your own original Figure showed. Your personal incredulity is a defect of you, not of the event: http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Argument_from_incredulity
until at least the experiment has been verified either by another event or the independent analysis.
There are several more events waiting in the pipeline to be published.
Again, you are pontificating on something you don’t understand [and probably – judging from past experience – won’t learn].
This is discussion section of the website, it is normal that participants should express all sorts of disagreements at the various scale of intensity, ranging from total belief in the announced discovery to a total rejection. I happen to think more experiments and the independent analysis of the data is needed. It is such profound discovery, that just one experiment which may or may not come close to what they think it should happen, has been confirmed. We heard about neutrinos velocity greater than speed of light and numerous times about the cold fusion successes , so a degree of scepticism is not only desirable but essential.
Well, it has already been tested at two observatories [Hanford and Livingston] and there are several more events in the pipeline. When people are skeptical, they should go look at the evidence, and not just invoke the personal-incredulity fallacy as you do.
It is not possible to synchronise two signals as shown in the LIGO’s
Original image
They are clearly different frequency
As usual you don’t know what you are talking about.
Here is the original Figure:
http://www.leif.org/research/Grav-Waves-Figure.png
The point is that the predicted waves matches the observed waves and there is no requirement for synchronization as the orientation of the two instruments are different.
Nothing to be ‘skeptical’ about in the sense of rejecting the finding. You can be skeptical about your understanding of the event.
reply to Dr. Svalgaard’ comment is above at
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/02/14/a-triumph-of-science-first-detection-of-the-gravitational-wave/comment-page-1/#comment-2145547
If I were you, I would retract that embarrassing comment, but considering the flood of such embarrassments that you continuously spout, we probably will not witness your moment of seeing the light.
I wonder if the early periodic table, had it been posted on the internet, replete as it were with clearly blank yet modeled yet-to-be-found elements, would have generated similar responses.
A two pixel, indeterminate focus moving image of black holes colliding. The climate scientists reckon they can fill in the blanks between scarce datum points, I would guess that for a few billion dollars they could release this in Cinemascope.
A two pixel,
Better stop listening to digital music. Digital music these days is one pixel (bit, really) turning on and off rapidly. Yet it seems to work.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta-sigma_modulation
Well that wiki reference as usual gives a poor explanation of delta sigma or sigma delta modulation.
The reason that sigma delta (or delta sigma) modulation is popular, particularly in audio frequency applications, is that you can get a very large number of bits of resolution with relatively simple hardware. Now that does not mean that they are linear of accurate to a very large number of bits, but they work without missing codes or non monotonic operation, with relatively simple hardware.
With some more obvious A-D or D-A converters it is extremely difficult to get to 16 bits for audio signal encoding.
Now 16 bits gives you a dynamic range of 96 dB. Older best in class LP recordings could record at best about 45-50dB of dynamic range; yet a full blown live symphomy orchestra has more like 90 -100 dB of dynamic range which has to be compressed to get it into the 50dB limit set by LP technology.
So if you can encode the loudest possible LP recorded sound at the top end of the 16 bit’s 96 dB amplitude, that means that the softest recordable signal now only has 46 dB of dynamic range , which is less than 8 bits.
So that means that the softer passages in the music, when digitized to 16 bits will only have 8 bits or less of dynamic range, and the ear will easily hear the totally horrible quantization noise from an 8 bit digitized audio signal. That is why a whole lot of CD music sounds like total junk compared to earlier LP recordings of the exact same music.
I have to 33 1/3 RPM LP recordings made in 1958-1964 time frame, originally cut from 16 track high speed tape masters.
I also have the exact same recording of the same music made from the exact same 16 track tapes used for the LPs now on CD.
The CDs are much more convenient to play. The LP disks, now 50 years old, sound much better than the CDs. At times the LPs may have a bit of dust noise or a click due to dropping the stylus on the disk and getting a scratch.
Nowadays, they can use sigma delta A-D converters and get something like 22 or 24 bits od digitization, so now the lowest volume passages don’t have any detectable quantization noise.
Unfortunately, a whole lot of modern musical recordings (I’m talking just of the classics, not rock music) are totally trash performances of the music, and even worse recording technology by the recorders. They just churn the stuff out.
My local ” Classical ” music station (there’s only one) has a CD of the week program, which they play over and over all week or even month long, trying to get some poor saps to buy it.
Most of it was musical garbage when it was written, and deserves all the obscurity it can muster; and then some; and it is still trash today; but people insist on performing it, and want you to buy their junk.
Rock music is no different. Most of it is pure garbage, so the good stuff has to compete with an avalanche of rubbish, to get noticed and appreciated. Hollywood churns out junk blockbuster movies like Mickey Spillane wrote ” Novels ” and people are expected to pay a small fortune to go and see this crap at their local theatre.
G
I wonder if gravitational waves follow the same path as EM radiation. If so, gravitational waves would also be bent by objects of huge mass and would make gravitational lensing of gravitational waves possible.
@ur momisugly Rik Gheysens
I wonder if gravitational waves follow the same path as EM radiation. If so, gravitational waves would also be bent by objects of huge mass and would make gravitational lensing of gravitational waves possible.
Gravity would have a hard time escaping from a black hole if its path could be bent by itself. ^_^
By the same token, since the waves continue to propagate regardless of the intervening medium, all one needs to observe them (theoretically!) is a sensitive enough detector. The confidence of the study team notwithstanding, the jury is still out as to whether LIGO qualifies as such. We shall see!