Record Number of New Gravitational Waves Offers Game-changing Window Into Universe

Astronomers have detected a record number of gravitational waves, in a discovery they say will shed light on the evolution of the universe, and the life and death of stars. From a report: An international team of scientists have made 35 new observations of gravitational waves, which brings the total number of detections since 2015 to 90. Gravitational waves are ripples in the fabric of spacetime, created by massive cosmic events -- such as pairs of black holes smashing together -- up to billions of light years away. Waves from these cataclysmic collisions were detected by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (Ligo) observatory in the US and the Virgo instrument in Italy between November 2019 and March 2020. The first detection of gravitational waves, announced in 2016, confirmed a prediction Albert Einstein made a century earlier based on his general theory of relativity. Monash University researcher Shanika Galaudage, a collaborator in the Australian branch of the project known as OzGrav, described gravitational waves as a game-changing "new window into the universe."

Re:

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

Ahh, the dreaded anti-fatter bomb.

Now that's what I call science

[NFN_NLN]

> confirmed a prediction Albert Einstein made a century earlier based on his general theory of relativity

No marketing budget, no PR campaign, no hype-man convincing you of your theories. Just sit back and wait for the truth to be revealed.

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[youngone]

Even the murderous criminal Ronald Reagan would be appalled by what the republican party has become.

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[Shaiku]

"Good evening, tonight on the 11 o'clock news: Researchers are now conversing in full sentences with whales...."

proctorg76: "Psh. Only whale translator talks to more whales than any other whale translator."

Come on, dude, there are two LIGO detectors in the U.S. and a sister installation called Virgo in Italy. Besides if your only takeaway from this is "detector designed to detect stuff detects more stuff" then please drown your angst in some 60's rock and leave the science to others.

Re:bit of a tautology no?

[RockDoctor]

Come on, dude, there are two LIGO detectors in the U.S. and a sister installation called Virgo in Italy.

There's also the Japanese Kamioka [wikipedia.org] gravity wave observatory under calibration in Japan, which has been collecting data since Feb 2020. It's still having problems, but should start producing data one day. (Remembering that LIGO took a number of years to get it's noise levels down to the point that it could detect gravitational waves.)

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[UnknowingFool]

More like "Gravity wave detectors has seen increasing average number of events over the years".

Re:Captain Obvious Strikes Again!

[iggymanz]

No, the detections per year would stay the same in that case. The increase in detections per year is due to sensitivity upgrades. Back in 2015, the first detection was due to improvement over original design (first operational in 2002) by factor of four with improvements.

Re:Captain Obvious Strikes Again!

[UnknowingFool]

The LIGO detectors alone have been operational since 2002. It was not until after their detectors were upgraded in 2015 that gravity waves were recorded. The first detection was February 11, 2016 as noted in the summary. I am not sure where you get the idea it was "starting from zero" in 2021.

Re: Captain Obvious Strikes Again!

[flyingfsck]

So the receiver works. When will they get the transmitter going?

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[UnknowingFool]

When NASA builds their neutron star/black hole slingshots. Creating two objects with the mass of at least 10 Suns each should be easy. Personally, I thought NASA should be building trebuchets instead of slingshots. Trebuchets just look cooler.

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[waveclaw]

Hopefully we get a transmitter to go with the receivers a little faster than the visible light version. Personally, I find centuries for a usable communications device is a bit of a gap to mind.

Galileo Galilei was looking and writing down what he saw through a telescope in 1564. Dr. Theodore Maiman developed the first working laser, which is used in these detectors, at Hughes Research Lab in 1960.

We've been flashing lights at each other from mountaintops with campfires and blankets for ages. But I p

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[RockDoctor]

We've been flashing lights at each other from mountaintops with campfires and blankets for ages. But I presume we are talking about something a little higher bandwidth than two if by ocean and one if by sea.

It may come as a shock to you, but with billion-dollar development budgets, the best data rates that we can achieve over distances of a few kilometres through drilling mud is about 1 baud, sometimes 1.5 baud. Now, we do manage to cram two or even four bits into each baud, but it's still slow enough that

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[RockDoctor]

We know what we need to build the transmitter - to accelerate on the order of 10^32 kg of matter by several 10s to hundreds of km/s. Then modulate it.

Over to you, engineers. Build it.

For reference, the Earth weighs about 6*10^24 kg. So you'll need to find another Solar system to provide material. Then bring it here. Or maybe, it would be better to go there to build the machinery. Choices, choices.

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[UnknowingFool]

I voted for trebuchets but kids these days want slingshots.

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[quenda]

We know what we need to build the transmitter - to accelerate on the order of 10^32 kg of matter by several 10s to hundreds of km/s. Then modulate it.

That is for transmitting over billions of light-years. What if I am a high-frequency trader just wanting a low-latency through-the-earth connection between Tokyo and New York?
That is only 10^-18 the distance, so 10^-36 the power needed, by inverse square rule.

So I figure less than a gram is needed. This is still a bit more than current particle accelerators can manage, but how hard can it be?
Or would it be easier to build a neutrino detector for this purpose, as we already have neutrino transmitters?

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[RockDoctor]

Neutrinos are massive. They don;t travel at light speed, even in a vacuum.

Mind you, since the route from (say) the Hang Seng to (does the New York Stock Exchange have a name other than it's description? Whatever, that place.) isn't in a vacuum, light itself doesn't travel at c, which is the speed of light in a vacuum, and other materials can travel faster than light does in the medium, if less than c. So maybe your neutrino radio would could work, in time-of-flight. I suspect the detectors would need a lot

Gravity Daydreams

[space_spaghetti]

With good enough gravity sensors we could, in theory, detect those gravity powered UFO/UAP that Lazar and others talk about. Or pick up any other nation state working on gravity tech. It would also be interesting to pick up the echoes of a deep space war that was using gravity based weapons. There are surely other neat things we could find and use this technique for.

theory

[danda]

Gravitational waves are theorized to be ripples in the fabric of spacetime

FTFY.

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[jfdavis668]

Yes, it is a theory. But I don't think it means what you think it means.

From Wikipedia: A scientific theory is an explanation of an aspect of the natural world and universe that has been repeatedly tested and verified in accordance with the scientific method, using accepted protocols of observation, measurement, and evaluation of results. Where possible, theories are tested under controlled conditions in an experiment. In circumstances not amenable to experimental testing, theories are evaluated through p

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[Dorianny]

Gravitational wave are no longer a "theory," they have been detected and are a "fact." General Relativity is the theory that predicted them and it will forever remain a theory, because no matter how many ways you test it, there is no way you can prove that it holds for all cases. Only math has proofs, every other field of science only has facts and theories.

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[danda]

The correction was: Gravitational waves are theorized to be ripples in the fabric of spacetime.

So clearly, it is the interpretation of them as "ripples in the fabric of spacetime" that I was objecting to, because "fabric of spacetime" belongs to a particular theory. This is basic english.

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[RockDoctor]

REfresh my memory - which year did your alternative idea win the Nobel. I must have been attending the "Ig"s that year and missed your overthrowing of our understanding of the large scale universe.

Me, and the whole of the science publishing industry. Who do, I grant, have a tendency to promoting curve-ball theories over the tedium of standard theories.

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[danda]

As you are no doubt aware, there are various competing cosmological theories. Relativity with its "curved spacetime" are amongst them, but some theories do not require such.

I object when theory is presented as fact, and would make the same objection if my preferred theories were stated as fact.

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[clawsoon]

I'm curious - what are the alternative theories you're thinking of, and which of them have passed all of the empirical tests that general relativity has?

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[danda]

For one, modern mechanics claims to match many (if not all) observations with higher precision than relativity. The author also points out mathematical mistakes in Einstein's proofs. The authors book, Disruptive (Bryant), is quite fascinating if you get a chance to pick it up.

If I remember correctly Subquantum kinetics makes similar claims and is also mind expanding.

Those are two off the top of my head that may meet your criteria. I've already listed 7+ alternate theories in other threads, no need to rep

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[RockDoctor]

Whether they've passed "all the empirical tests relativity has" would be something to discuss with the authors of said theories, not me.

I'm sure your teachers at kindergarten got used to saying "Fail. Has not completed required reading."

Or does your educational history not include the concept of "fail"?

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[Tablizer]

To board the Pedantic Train, one could interpret it as "are defined as". If it turns out there is no such thing as "ripples in the fabric of spacetime", then the definition is still not wrong, just moot. Thus, I don't consider the usage inherent wrong.

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[khchung]

Gravitational waves are theorized to be ripples in the fabric of spacetime

FTFY.

And radio waves are theorized to be ripples in some ethereal electromagnetic field that pervades everywhere. Transistors also worked because of behaviour of elections within silicon theorized by quantum mechanics which nobody really understands.

Lacking any better alternative theory, Gravitational waves are ripplies in the fabric of spacetime, as far as we can know at this point in time. Qualifying every statement with "theorized" is simply being pretentious and added nothing to sentence.

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[danda]

> ethereal electromagnetic field

now we may be getting somewhere. If we admit there is an etheric medium for waves to propogate in as Dayton Miller detected, then we don't need to make the speed of light some kind of absolute limit, just as the speed of sound is not an absolute limit.

> waves are ripplies in the fabric of spacetime

Perhaps they "are" for you. However, I reject the Einsteinian notion of curved spacetime, as have many others, past and present. If we say instead that gravitational waves

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[khchung]

However, I reject the Einsteinian notion of curved spacetime,

You reminded me the futility of trying to discuss science with Americans. However, just so others more interested in science won't be lead down the same intellectual dead-end where you are, I will give it one more try.

So, you "reject" Einstein's theory of gravity, then pray tell, what's YOUR alternative theory or explanation for gravity then? And without the General Theory of Relativity, what do you say had LIGO's laser interferometer detected? Without GR's spacetime curvature, there would be no waves, a