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Space Science

Double Pulsar Discovered 293

jabberjaw writes "Nature is reporting that a set of two pulsars could be emitting gravitational waves. Einstein predicted the existence of gravitational waves in his general theory of relativity, but a gravitational wave has yet to be detected. Find out more about gravitational waves and pulsars at Eric Weisstein's World of Physics."
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Double Pulsar Discovered

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  • by BiOFH ( 267622 ) on Saturday January 10, 2004 @02:34AM (#7936368)
    John Goodman's ass has been emitting gravity waves for years.

  • Speed of Gravity (Score:5, Interesting)

    by fejikso ( 567395 ) on Saturday January 10, 2004 @02:37AM (#7936377) Homepage
    Does someone know if these waves travel at the speed of light? Of course, as predicted by the theory.

    I suppose so... otherwise we could eventually devise faster-than-light communications, and I don't think the Universe is that nice :)
    • Yes (Score:5, Informative)

      by rebelcool ( 247749 ) on Saturday January 10, 2004 @02:46AM (#7936409)
      Article [bbc.co.uk]
      • Maybe Not. (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 10, 2004 @04:03AM (#7936620)
        Article 1 [space.com], Article 2. [nature.com]

        Some scientists that have inspected the calculations believe the experiment is flawed and that they instead measured the speed of light itself (ie: they probably measured the speed of the light they were using to make their observations with, not the speed of the Jupiter distortion).

        Correct answer: The speed of gravity is not (yet) a scientifically proved and universally accepted fact. Saying anything else is bad science.
    • by UPAAntilles ( 693635 ) on Saturday January 10, 2004 @02:51AM (#7936426)
      The answer is a resounding...we dunno!

      We have determined that it is at least 2x10^8 m/s, however, it may be as much as 3.6x10^8 (faster than light). We honestly don't know. I'm pretty sure I heard my quantum mecanics professor at the University of Arizona mention something about Einstein's theories requiring light and gravity to equal in speed, but I'm an aerospace engineer, not a quantum physicist. If they do equal...if the sun were to disappear, we would see the light of the sun and still be fine orbit wise for about 8 minutes. Kinda funny to think about.

      As for the faster-than-light communications, we could do that with tangled photons. Einstein was troubled by the fact that quantum entanglment causes an instantaneous change across a large distance. It's been used in a large number of sci-fi novels, including Orson Scott Cards Ender's Game series of books.
      • Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)

        by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Saturday January 10, 2004 @03:10AM (#7936483)
        Comment removed based on user account deletion
        • Re:Speed of Gravity (Score:5, Informative)

          by sahrss ( 565657 ) on Saturday January 10, 2004 @03:49AM (#7936597)
          You can also download the entire thing if you like. I just spent 15 minutes digging all this up, figured I might save someone else that time.
          Some previous Slashdotters showed [slashdot.org] us [slashdot.org] how [slashdot.org] (first link is to the highest quality download).

          I got it to work fine with this (remove the spaces!):
          curl "http://a768.g.akamai.net/5/768/142/3f9e9589/1a1a1 afb6ae049ae214fc034aad839a91985ea187bea5786f362d84 1a61948bf2688f01f87fb6fdf0e7ceb61c22186fb/nova_eu_ 30[12-14]c[01-08]_mp4_300.mov" -o universe#1_#2.mov
        • Is it possible to download the elegant universe series? I hate having to watching things in QuickTime or RealPlayer -- they are quite easily the worst two media players ever devised.
      • Re:Speed of Gravity (Score:5, Interesting)

        by akruppa ( 300316 ) on Saturday January 10, 2004 @09:38AM (#7937263) Homepage
        As for the faster-than-light communications, we could do that with tangled photons. Einstein was troubled by the fact that quantum entanglment causes an instantaneous change across a large distance. It's been used in a large number of sci-fi novels, including Orson Scott Cards Ender's Game series of books.

        The problem with quantum teleportation is that you need to send classical information in order for the receiver to reconstruct the quantum state to be transmitted.

        When Alice prepared her entangled quantum bit with \phi, the state that is to be transferred, Bob's (entangled) quantum bit is in a superposition of states that do not yet reveal any information on what \phi was. Alice needs to measure her \phi and entangled qubit and send that info to Bob, who can then apply some operators on this copy of the entagled qubit and that puts it into the state that \phi originally was in. So the speed of quantum teleportation is actually tied to the speed of classical information transfer, thus limited to the speed of light.

        Alex

        • Actually, I thought he was referring to "spooky action at a distance". This doesn't envolve "teleportation". Basically you "create" two particles (be it atoms or sub-atomic) that are 'entangled', they will have opposite spins. Seperate them over a large distance and the instant you change the spin on one of the particles, the other one changes as well.

          Doesn't matter how far apart the particles are... the change is instantaneous.
      • Re:Speed of Gravity (Score:2, Informative)

        by Pryon ( 181814 )

        As for the faster-than-light communications, we could do that with tangled photons. Einstein was troubled by the fact that quantum entanglment causes an instantaneous change across a large distance.

        I assume you're talking about the fact that two spin-1/2 particles generated in a single decay have entangled spin polarization states. These spin states cannot be used to transmit information faster than light. While it is true that the effect happens over arbitrarily large separations, the people doing

    • Re:Speed of Gravity (Score:5, Informative)

      by TexVex ( 669445 ) on Saturday January 10, 2004 @04:09AM (#7936640)
      When calculating the orbits of celestial bodies, it is necessary to assume that gravity is instantaneous. When an object moves, its gravity appears to move with it instantly. The earth appears to orbit the Sun's present position rather than where the sun appears to be due to speed-of-light delay.

      As I understand it, though, there are two ways to look at it. The Earth is approximately 8 light-minutes from the Sun. The Earth is either orbiting the Sun's actual position, or it's orbiting a point that would be about eight minutes in front of the Sun's extrapolated path based on its position and momentum at that given instant.

      It comes down to a question of whether or not gravity is a field or a particle. If it's a particle, then it must travel at some unimaginable speed. If it's a field then it would share some of the properties (like velocity and direction) of the object that generates it, and changes to the field would propagate outward from the object at the speed of light. These changes to an object's field of gravity are thought to produce "gravity waves" that have yet to be detected.

      I could very well be muddled on this subject but I have done some reading on it. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
      • Re:Speed of Gravity (Score:5, Interesting)

        by TexVex ( 669445 ) on Saturday January 10, 2004 @04:37AM (#7936707)
        The Earth is either orbiting the Sun's actual position, or it's orbiting a point that would be about eight minutes in front of the Sun's extrapolated path based on its position and momentum at that given instant.
        What I meant to say here is "or it's orbiting a point that would be the Sun's extrapolated position based on constant motion from its position, direction, and velocity about eight minutes ago." That point won't be exactly where the Sun is now but it will be pretty close.

        That's what I get for trying to discuss something I'm familiar with but not extremely knowledgeable of at 3:30 in the morning.
      • Engineering Flunky, but my flaw was trying to understand everything instead of STFU and do the math.

        In engineering we have many phenominon that are not completely understood. We develop mathematical models for them, but it's often the case that a phenominon can have multiple models that work well in different cases.

        Particles and waves aren't phenominon by themselves. Particles and waves are mathematical tools. They both describe motion traveling at the same speed. Just because you flip rulesets doesn't

      • Couldn't you reckon that with the timing of solar tides? That's the easiest to measure effect of the sun's gravity on the earth.
  • by MillionthMonkey ( 240664 ) * on Saturday January 10, 2004 @02:39AM (#7936385)
    I wonder how many times these two neutron stars could bounce if they were to hit the water at an angle of 20 degrees.

  • by UPAAntilles ( 693635 ) on Saturday January 10, 2004 @02:42AM (#7936398)
    I would be very suprised if they could actually "prove" the existance of such waves. Gravity is such a weak force compared to the other three (strong, weak, and electromagnetic) that pulsars light-years upon light-years away would be washed out by the gravitational effects of, well, the rest of the universe! There's been conjecture about this for years, and entire theories to try and resolve this problem of no detection (several string theories have been developed around this problem) We've even built miles long observation "tools" (like this one in Livingston, LA) [caltech.edu]. However, if we can solve the background noise radiation, and the pulsars are close enough to earth, and have a large enough gravity, they just might do it! Einstein's theory of general relativity states that two orbiting stars (two orbiting anythings, but stars have a lot of mass and therefore gravity, so it would be pronounced) will 'shed' some of their momentum through gravity waves. The detection of these waves could revolutionize physics! It would allow us to determine the existance of the graviton, and if we ever did that, the world as we know it would change. Because once we pin it down, we can start converting energy to it, and probably start research on a feasible "anti-graviton" of sorts. Warp Drives, here we come! (well, not likely, but a guy can hope)
    • Maybe they can prove existence of waves without having to observe a graviton (although that would be better). In the same way that you can test gravity by throwing an apple in the air, maybe there are some remnants of the impacts of the gravity waves... allowing for indirect observation of the phenomenom. Would this be possible here?

    • by MillionthMonkey ( 240664 ) * on Saturday January 10, 2004 @03:15AM (#7936498)
      The detection of these waves could revolutionize physics! It would allow us to determine the existance of the graviton, and if we ever did that, the world as we know it would change. Because once we pin it down, we can start converting energy to it, and probably start research on a feasible "anti-graviton" of sorts. Warp Drives, here we come! (well, not likely, but a guy can hope)

      What are you talking about? There is no such thing as an "anti-graviton" since the graviton is its own antiparticle, like the photon is. And how would detection of a gravitational wave help advance technology as opposed to pure science? Pure gravity research is not exactly known for its technological applications.

      And it isn't obvious how we will start "converting energy" into gravitons once we've succeeded in "determining their existence". Except in a trivial sense, like when you push a rock up a hill. But you can do that now.

      • No, the graviton can very well have an anti-graviton and a photon an anti-photon. The argument against it would be that both things don't have a charge...well neutrinos don't have charges either, but they have anti-particles. If particle A has a charge of 0, then Anti-A has a charge of 0 as well. However, the graviton is special...it produces 'gravity waves'. Photons and gravitons are more dissimilar though, gravitons cause gravity waves. If an anti-graviton were to exist, and we could convert photons
        • The Standard Model of particles says there's no graviton, that's who! :)

          You said:
          "No, the graviton can very well have an anti-graviton and a photon an anti-photon. The argument against it would be that both things don't have a charge...well neutrinos don't have charges either, but they have anti-particles."

          You're misunderstanding why Photons Gluons and presumably Gravitons, if they exist, do not have anti-photons, anti-gravitons etc. and are actually THEIR OWN ANTIPARTICLES. It is not because they have no
          • Of course in the first line of my post I meant to say:

            "The Standard Model of particles says there's no ANTI-graviton, that's who! :)"

            -sorry 'bout that.
      • by kwpulliam ( 691406 ) <kevin.pulliam@gm a i l .com> on Saturday January 10, 2004 @05:46AM (#7936814) Journal
        "And how would detection of a gravitational wave help advance technology as opposed to pure science?" Well...you generally need the science for the technology. "Pure gravity research is not exactly known for its technological applications" Hmmm. Pure electrical research was useless for centuries, but it's QUITE handy nowadays... I think I'm gonna go turn up the thermostat. Don't prejudge unknown applications. Your grandkids may not comprehend how we lived without it. I'm sure glad I don't have to chop wood, read by kerosene, drive a horse or steam cart, or write this out longhand to a discussion journal and wait 3 months to see it in print.
    • Indirect detection (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Beryllium Sphere(tm) ( 193358 ) on Saturday January 10, 2004 @04:01AM (#7936616) Journal
      If the system is emitting gravity waves then it's losing energy by doing so, and the orbit will gradually decay.

      You can measure the orbit precisely when there's a pulsar in the system, which is a good timing source. Then you can check whether the orbit's decaying at the rate predicted by the math of gravity wave radiation.

      That measurement's been done for another binary system. See http://astrosun2.astro.cornell.edu/academics/cours es//astro201/psr1913.htm and read about 3/4 of the way down.

      Observation agrees with Einstein in this case.
    • by rokzy ( 687636 ) on Saturday January 10, 2004 @04:05AM (#7936628)
      I hate it when physics topics come up on slashdot, there are always annoying people like you who know a few words but don't really have a clue.

      you're the science equivalent of the guy who says his OS is AOL.
  • by Darken_Everseek ( 681296 ) on Saturday January 10, 2004 @02:42AM (#7936399)
    Just on an intuitive level, at least. Gravity is a lot like electro-magnetism, in that it produces it's effects invisibly. That, to me at least, implies some method of energy transfer. Waves seem a reasonable enough explanation. I wonder though, if the same wave/particle duality will be observed as we see in photons. Cool stuff.
  • At last?? (Score:4, Informative)

    by talonx ( 647717 ) on Saturday January 10, 2004 @02:46AM (#7936407)
    Gravitational waves have always been notoriously difficult to detect (infact near nigh impossible) because of their weak nature. This looks like a good opportunity to do that.
  • by DAldredge ( 2353 ) <SlashdotEmail@GMail.Com> on Saturday January 10, 2004 @02:46AM (#7936408) Journal
    How fast is gravity?

    If the sun went poof, how long would it take for Earth to go off into space? 8 minutes or as soon as it happened?
    • Someone already asked this and another person linked to some article, the article basically said that gravity moves at the speed of light. So if the sun went poof earth would take 8 minutes to float off into space. Some scientists figured this out by measuring the time it took jupiter to bend some quasars radio waves as it passed in front of the quasar.
    • by DumbSwede ( 521261 ) <slashdotbin@hotmail.com> on Saturday January 10, 2004 @03:19AM (#7936505) Homepage Journal
      I think most scientists believe the Sun's gravity will lag at the same speed as light.

      BUT, assume the Sun winked out while it was night for you.

      You wouldn't feel a thing.
      No massive, "Oh, MY GOD we're lurching into space!" That's the whole point of space curved by gravity, you can't tell that you're not traveling a straight line. The weather would goto hell in a handbasket fast from no incoming heat after a few minutes or hours, and of course dawn wouldn't come. There might be some tectonic activity, some isolated magnitude seven and eights here and there, but most likely not immediately.

      No you wouldn't even notice at first as the night hung on forever, and Earth continued on a straight line into the blackness...

      • Without viable plant activity, provided by the sun, what would humans do for food?

        Is this a survivable situation by even a small group of humans?

        I've wondered about it a couple of times.
        • by bhima ( 46039 ) <Bhima@Pandava.gmail@com> on Saturday January 10, 2004 @04:32AM (#7936698) Journal
          Actually this was the topic of an old Sci-Fi short story called "A Pail of Air". Basically it was a thought experiment starting with the nemesis theory (Giant dark proto-sun in a highly elliptical orbit which swings by every epoch to cause mass extinctions).

          So Nemesis swings by and strips the Earth off the sun's orbit. The goes dark and cold and there is some tectonic activity. The interesting thing is that the Earth's temperature starts to drop to match the temperature of open space. The oceans freeze and the atmosphere condenses and rains down to the surface, where it forms strata based on what temperature the gas condenses at. To the protagonist goes out side and digs past the CO2 until he finds a strata of O2 and brings a pail of air inside.

          But I doubt even a small number of people could survive this for long!

          • Interesting, though the O2 should freeze out LONG after the CO2. In fact he shouldn't have to dig at all to reach frozen O2 since it would be the last major constituant of the atmosphere to freeze out at ~55K (N2 freezes out at ~63K) it would be right on top of everything!
      • I'm really thinking you are completely under estimating the importance of the sun here.

        The planet is under CONSTANT stress from the pull of the sun, and it compensates in more ways than I can even imagine. Suddenly, that force is gone.

        What happens when you lean against a leash ( what? I was a very hard to control child, leashes seem like a perfectly reasonable idea at the time ) while someone is holding the other end. Suddenly, they let go, without you expecting it. You fall on your face.

        That is exac
        • When you hold onto a leash you are part of a system, and you feel centripital force. Though compared to a leash, Gravity is not a leash, you follow the curve in space it makes. There is a significant centripital force from the Earth's rotation, and you would feel suddenly slightly heavier if it ceased. Then yes, every active fault would come alive. But that's not what we are talking about. The stress on fault lines are more from the day to day rotation under the pull of gravity. They are use to being
          • Yes, if I had to guess, I would say we are heavier at midnight and lighter at noon. I don't believe we have the instruments required to measure that, as our mass is so minor that the effects would be on such a tiny scale.

            And I am not just talking about fault lines ( although I don't doubt that we'd see some violent shakers ), but all the little ways the earth compensates for the constant tug from the sun. It's like a house of cards, pull table out from underneath and the house falls.
      • I probably should leave this topic alone, I already have my mod points, but there is just a lot of bad physics in this thread, some of it mod'ed, up mostly because it makes some kind of intuitive sense, but is wrong none the less.

        When I said you wouldn't even notice, I only meant in the short term from the lack of gravitational influence. In fact I stated this in a couple of ways, and yet some have responded as if I think we don't need a Sun. Bihma had an interesting eventual outcome response but lets c

    • Well, if ART is correct, the earth has NO way to know the sun is gone until the event horizon reaches it with the speed of light 8 minutes later...
  • by gid13 ( 620803 )
    What I'M waiting for is some strong nuclear force waves. Now THOSE would be cool.
  • Do they have anything specific in orbit to study this phenomenon further? I haven't kept track of all our science satellites.
  • by DumbSwede ( 521261 ) <slashdotbin@hotmail.com> on Saturday January 10, 2004 @03:02AM (#7936463) Homepage Journal
    This is great scientific news, I would imagine astronomical observations should allow for accurate predictions of resultant gravity wave phenomenon. By knowing the time and amplitude of the gravity waves emanating, one should be able to calibrate and adust LIGO [caltech.edu] to a great deal of precision. I think till know we have been in a I-Duh-Know-Maybe-It's-Working state. Once we know LIGO is working, we will be able to finally detect gravitational phenomenon directly.

    As an aside, with a system this unique, and not to sound too much like a loon, but perhaps we should look for an ET presence. Not as the creators, but there maybe unique physical process than can be exploited in such a system, and doing so may give off a detectable technological signature.

    • By knowing the time and amplitude of the gravity waves emanating, one should be able to calibrate and adust LIGO to a great deal of precision.

      I was about to get all excited and agree that you get get far more sensitivity if you tune it to look for a single specific known signal, but then reality hit. This system has a frequency of 2.4 hours - 0.00012 hertz. Splat, dead idea. LIGO is designed to look in the 10's or 100's of hertz and I doubt it be able to reliably pick up anything much below 0.1 hertz.

      I d
  • Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Saturday January 10, 2004 @03:18AM (#7936504)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Interesting idea ...

      If I understand you correctly, you are proposing that gravity is property of space, not matter. In this idea space is attracted to space, and as a result the center of the universe is the center of "space mass", and has the highest amount of space presure. The effect that we see is that matter (which has a lower space-density) is displaced by space away from the center, and towards the outer edges. Is this correct?

      Now this model would (qualitatively at least) predict that space pressur
      • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        Comment removed based on user account deletion
        • by pavon ( 30274 )
          Because matter is the minority substance in space, it will be space that is trying to displace matter.

          To clarify - water is not trying to displace air because it is a minority substance, but because it is a less dense substance. The water pressure at a point is caused by all the water above that point pushing down (because of gravity). Therefore the water pressure at the bottom of the bubble is greater than the pressure at the top of the bubble, because there is more water above it, at the bottom than at
      • This is exactly the model proposed by Haisch, Rueda, Puthoff, Ibison, Cole and Little in the Stochastics ElectroDynamics (SED) theory. They show that gravity is a long-range Van der Waals sort of force caused by repulsion by the vacuum because of quantum fluctuations. For example, that's the kind of repulsion shown in the Casimir effect, if you cut off part of the quantum fluctuations with conductive plates, or mask them partly with matter, you get a force because of the rest of the Universe around, in the
  • by etymxris ( 121288 ) on Saturday January 10, 2004 @03:33AM (#7936545)
    Anybody know why Jocelyn Bell received no credit [wolfram.com] for actually discovering pulsars, yet her thesis advisor, who actually seemed to do nothing, did?
    • Whoops (Score:2, Interesting)

      by etymxris ( 121288 )
      It seems that Hewish and Ryle got the Nobel for their role in radio astronomy, not pulsars.
      • It seems that Hewish and Ryle got the Nobel for their role in radio astronomy, not pulsars.

        That's just Nobelspeak. Pulsars are studied in the field of radioastronomy, and you often find that Nobel prizes are awarded for a range of activities instead of a single point discovery. For a more famous example, Einstein got his Nobel for advances in theoretical physics and particularly for his explanation of the photoelectric effect. Special Relativity was kind of included in the theor.phys. but its role was not

    • Of course, the irony is that if someone says to me "pulsar discovery" (and, for the record, I'm a stellar astrophysicist), I immediately think "Jocelyn Bell". I haven't got the first idea who here supervisor was. She may not have won the prize; but she got the credit, well-deservedly.

    • Taking the credit for the work of one's graduate student is a time-honored tradition in academia.

  • This is hardly new stuff; binary pulsar systems have been discovered and used in the past to help corroborate general relativity's prediction of gravitational waves. The classic example is the Taylor-Hulse binary pulsar (PSR 1913+16). Theory and Experiment in Gravitational Physics (Will, 1981) even has an entire section (Chapter 12, "Binary Pulsar") devoted to the topic, and the sci.physics.relativity FAQ certainly has plenty to say on the subject.
  • by ajagci ( 737734 ) on Saturday January 10, 2004 @05:15AM (#7936773)
    The news has been welcomed by gravitational wave hunters, since it boosts their hopes for detecting the gravitational waves [...] General relativity predicts that the two stars will slowly wobble like spinning tops allowing new tests of the theory.

    Alternative theories to general relativity usually also predict such effects, including gravitational waves. So, these results, even if confirmed, don't actually tell you a whole lot. What they do tell you is that Newtonian mechanics isn't quite right, but, then, we already knew that.
  • by NoData ( 9132 ) <_NoData_@nOspAM.yahoo.com> on Saturday January 10, 2004 @05:26AM (#7936787)
    In the university press release:
    The stars will coalesce in only approximately 85 million years, sending a ripple of gravity waves across the Universe

    So...wait, 85 million years from when? Now? Or is it 85 million years from what we currently observe, which is probably several million years in the past (neither link provides the distance of the pulsars from earth)?
    In other words, will we observe the coalescing in 85 million years, or 85 million + time of transit?

    Sheesh, it never occurred to me how dicey verb tense is in astronomy...Talking about the future of distant objects that exist in the past which we are observing presently.. Reminds me of Dr. Streetmentioner's Time Traveler's Handbook of 1001 Tense Formations from Restaurant at the End of the Universe.
    • Right now we see a system 85M years from coalescing, that means in 85M years from today we will see it happen.

      Besides, google search [google.com] reveals that they are about 1600-2000 light-years away so you can pretty much ignore any questions of "now_here" against "now_there". 85M years +/- 2K years is still 85M years.

      -
  • Animations (Score:4, Interesting)

    by allrong ( 445675 ) on Saturday January 10, 2004 @06:35AM (#7936932) Homepage

    Animations [csiro.au] of the evolution and current state of the pulsar system are available.

  • by simonharvey ( 605068 ) on Saturday January 10, 2004 @06:40AM (#7936949) Homepage
    there are at least two methods that I know off that can be used to detect the sign of gravity waves:
    1. The first is to photograph the upper atmosphere with an incredibly sensitive camera during night time, the reason is that gravity waves (that have a period of a few hours) cause the upper atmosphere to strech and compress causing the atoms that cause air glow to seporate into layers. this shows up on the image as bands. these gravity waves are emitted from the center of the earth.
    2. the second is to use an incredibly precise receiver tuned to a reliable transmitter in the HF bands, to a frequency that gets reflected by the ionosphere. since gravity waves will cause the ionosphere to expand and contract the change in velocity will cause the HF signal to be doppler shifted, meaning the gravity wave will be shown up in a slight variation of the incomming frequency.
    the second option can be done by ham radio operators (if they really know there stuff), the first option is for universities since only they have the budget to buy the expensive equipment.

    simon

  • On one side scientists are determined to find a theory that unifies all the forces (so far the Stochastical ElectroDynamics theory unifies electromagnetism with gravity and inertia, while the Superstring theory has trouble unifying gravity with the other unified three electromagnetic force and weak / strong interactions).

    And on the other side they'd want to find gravitational waves ? If the forces are really one and only interaction then it all comes down somehow to electromagnetic waves (whatever name we
  • Not much on topic, but notice who found it: Parkes in Australia - and the final paragraph says they're major pulsar discoverers down there.

    After recently catching "The Dish" on a movie channel, it's nice to see the successors of the guys that brought a 10-year-old me the Apollo 11 TV signal are still in there on the frontiers of science.
  • That's one damned fine simulation video they have. For those who can't get to it ( or simply to relieve the load on the CSIRO server ), I've mirrored the big one at: http://enthalpy.homelinux.org/cool_stuff/PulsarsEv olutionPAL.mpg [homelinux.org]

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