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US Restarts Hunt For Gravitational Waves With Advanced LIGO72

• Re: (Score:2)

Cool. Thanks for the clarification. There is one thing, however, I still don't grasp: you posit that one

can readily substitute "information" for "momentum" here

. Momentum is expressed in Newton meters per second; information is expressed in bits. How does this equivalence "work" ?

• Re: (Score:2)

I'm not trying to knock you or anything, but your post did remind me of a discussion I had with the LIGO Hanford director (when I worked there a while back). There are many people who don't understand the details of gravitational wave theory (me included), and most of them are either indifferent or curious. They either don't care too much, or ask questions from experts in order to expand their knowledge (like you seem to be doing). Then there are the other types, who either want to prove the experts wron

• Do we know it can work? (Score:2)

I don't really see how this method can even detect the gravity waves. As the gravity waves come along, they change the length of the beams. But the change in gravity will also change time. So the light beam traveling down the beam will appear to have taken longer to travel the shorter distance. I bet they cancel each other out and you have no difference in the time taken to travel down the beams even when there is a gravity wave traveling by.
• Re: (Score:1)

I bet they cancel each other out and you have no difference in the time taken to travel down the beams even when there is a gravity wave traveling by.

The waves actually change the refractive index of the vacuum between the mirrors - the mirrors themselves aren't moving. It's a subtle difference but it means there is no cancellation you speak of.

• coin flip: gravity waves or commercial fusion? (Score:2)

Both of these are expensive multi-decade projects with high initial hopes, but slow progress. In the 1970s they said these would occur in the 1980s.

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