Gravitational Waves May Have Been Detected In 1987 221
KentuckyFC writes "In 1987, a physicist called Joe Weber claimed to have detected gravitational waves at the same time that other scientists spotted a supernova called SN1987A. His claims were largely ignored because of calculations showing that gravitational waves could not be strong enough to be picked up by Weber's equipment, a set of giant aluminium cylinders designed to vibrate as the waves passed by. But these calculations were based on first order effects in the way spacetime can be distorted. Now a new analysis shows that second order effects can enhance gravitational waves by four orders of magnitude, but only when certain asymmetries are present. It turns out that SN1987A possesses just the right kind of asymmetries to make this enhancement possible because the supernova wasn't entirely spherical. Which means that Weber, who died in 2000, may have been the first to see gravitational waves after all."
How much (Score:5, Insightful)
How much does it have to suck to die, with your observations being discredited, and your claims laughed at? Then a decade later, the scientific community goes "oops, you were right".
And now, in Slashdot's infinite wisdom, I am required to wait five minutes between posts.
Re:Honor (Score:5, Insightful)
We are talking '87 and there are too many unknowns in the experimental setup, that no-one can clarify now. Did a truck drive by here in '87?
Re:How much (Score:4, Insightful)
I would argue it might upset him more. I mean, this is his work. You do not get to this level without putting a lot of your heart and soul into it. To be convinced that you are on the edge of a major discovery only to have it rejected has to be disheartening.
Re:How much (Score:2, Insightful)
Probably doesn't suck at all for this guy, I'm sure he doesn't care at all. Maybe his family and friends, but he probably doesn't care one bit.
Re:Honor (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Waves? (Score:1, Insightful)
If they're anything like light, they're both.
Re:Gravity model (Score:4, Insightful)
It's only a very crude analogy. In reality, it's both space *and* time that are being distorted. Gravity causes all the "straight lines" (geodesics) in space-time to become curved. So the Earth orbits around the Sun and a thrown ball follows a parabolic arc because it's actually a "straight line" in space-time that gravity has curved just like a Great Circle on the Earth is a "straight line" (i.e. the shortest distance between two points) with respect to the surface of the Earth.
Re:Honor (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Honor (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Honor (Score:4, Insightful)
No, that is exactly how science is supposed to work.
Re:Honor (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:How much (Score:3, Insightful)
In a sense, then, he did detect gravity waves. And so he was right in saying "I detected gravity waves". However, he may have been right for the wrong reasons. Science works by interpreting data, and convincing others that your interpretation is correct.
Not necessarily. There's different things under the title of science, and one of them is black-box science, when you're investigating something that you don't know the slightest thing about, and seeing what happens. We don't know exactly how gravity waves should behaves, so reporting that you detected them (even when the math says you shouldn't be able to), *is* valid science. As Feynman said, experiments trump math.
Re:Honor (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course, discarding observations because the error margin was then considered too big makes a lot of sense. That is what happened.
The theory that was used to reject the observations was the same one being tested. That's circular. God forbid anyone actually inject reality into that feedback loop of the purely theoretical.
I can't tell you how many times truly new knowledge about the universe was ignored because the scientific orthodoxy claimed "that *can't* be right" based on nothing but assertion.
Re:Not really. (Score:1, Insightful)
Er, no, you don't "truly" see anything.
Yes, I do.
Your brain forms a representation of reality based on sensory input.
Yes. That's what "see" means. So why did you claim that I don't "truly" do it?
Re:Honor (Score:5, Insightful)
If I release a ball and it goes up, the first thing I check for is the helium balloon attached with string. Then, I check to see if the ball itself is full of helium. Then, after a few more checks, I get people in to go "oh yeah, huh, it does go up.", but not before discounting the obvious boring explanations . Failure to do otherwise isn't science.
This is a bit of real science that fell through the cracks because it wasn't exactly repeatable.
Re:Some more info (Score:2, Insightful)
"eventual downfall of Weber's reputation."
I think this type of thinking is a problem with the scientific community. It prevents people from admitting mistakes and moving on. If someones hypothesis is wrong that shouldn't be the end of their reputation. It doesn't necessarily make them a bad scientist and shouldn't be mean the ruination of their careers and the destruction of their reputation. Whats important is the process. Its quite possible that with limited data two different possible hypotheses could present themselves. If later data proves one right and one wrong that doesn't make the person who tendered the wrong one a bad scientist. This type of think should change.
Cheers,
Greg
Re:Honor (Score:3, Insightful)
Can you name one?
Re:Honor (Score:3, Insightful)
It also raises the question: if light waves can't escape a black hole then why can gravitational waves?
indeed. one would almost think light and gravity waves are not the same kind of thing.
Re:Some more info (Score:3, Insightful)
It's when you don't admit that you are wrong that your reputation suffers.
Re:Honor (Score:3, Insightful)
Gravity, as is currently understood, is a depression on the fabric of spacetime, and a gravity wave could be considered a ripple on that fabric. Fact is, according to current theory, information can't propagate faster than light in a vacuum, so if the sun instantly blinked out of existence, the earth would still feel a tug of the sun's gravity for eight minutes before we finally flew off like the string had been severed.
Gravity isn't exactly like light though, because gravity "escapes" from black holes. You can stand near the edge of an event horizon, and still feel the influence of the gravity inside the black hole.
Re:How much (Score:3, Insightful)
What more could a scientist hope for? You're ostracized your entire life, and after you're dead and forgotten, your research comes back to the forefront and people realize you were onto something.
Surely Copernicus and Galileo would be psyched to be part of the group who resurrected the concept of science. What about Darwin? Darwin's ideas were good, but not good enough. He had a mechanism for evolution, but no way of allowing the mutations to be passed on. With the synthesis of genetics, Darwin's name has become as much a synonym for biology as Einstein or Newton has become for Physics.
Re:Honor (Score:3, Insightful)
We have learned a lot from experience about how to handle some of the ways we fool ourselves. One example: Millikan measured the charge on an electron by an experiment with falling oil drops, and got an answer which we now know not to be quite right. It's a little bit off because he had the incorrect value for the viscosity of air. It's interesting to look at the history of measurements of the charge of an electron, after Millikan. If you plot them as a function of time, you find that one is a little bit bigger than Millikan's, and the next one's a little bit bigger than that, and the next one's a little bit bigger than that, until finally they settle down to a number which is higher. Why didn't they discover the new number was higher right away? It's a thing that scientists are ashamed of - this history - because it's apparent that people did things like this: When they got a number that was too high above Millikan's, they thought something must be wrong - and they would look for and find a reason why something might be wrong. When they got a number close to Millikan's value they didn't look so hard. And so they eliminated the numbers that were too far off, and did other things like that. We've learned those tricks nowadays, and now we don't have that kind of a disease.