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20 Comments
- goat77, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9You are either a disturbing comedian, or someone who knows nothing about physics.
- borchard76, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5At first I was excited, foolishly thinking that if they could measure it, then it could be manipulated. But they aren't going to measure the waves, just detect the supposed results of the waves. This is misleading in some ways, because there are, potentially, other causes that could have the same effect, and with an instrument this sensitive it is very easy to get a false positive (which is why they are building four).
This is similar to what happens in psychology (and why psychology is so slow in making real progress) in that by not being able to directly observe what is happening, we have to only observe behavior and then guess as to the cause by controlling for other things. This is difficult to do, and very annoying.
For all you physicists: welcome to my world, where phenomena are only seen indirectly, as through a darkened mirror. Despair and weep!
...er, where was I? I seem to have gotten sidetracked. - elnerdo, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5Gravity waves + gun = Gravity gun?!
- gotd0t, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2"Science fiction based in science" isn't that a bit redundant?
- theone3, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2"The gravity is strong with this one"
- gann, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I always wonder if extra-terrestrial intelligence are actually keep sending us signal, not through EM wave (so SETI will fail :-( ) but through gravity wave.
- Neutralino, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1See Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country wherein the artificial gravity aboard a Klingon ship is disabled to set up a political assassination.
And rblinne is absolutely correct in his response, we do understand gravity at medium and large scales, but it's so very very very very very weak that gathering evidence to build a theory to describe a quantum field theory picture of gravity (if it is even possible to express gravity in the language of quantum field theory) is exceedingly difficult. - wbubel, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Doesn't Gravity just suck!
- taotehue, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1If you find this science interesting you should read the science fiction by Brinn, "EARTH"
- exipolar, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I never thought that anybody had a strictly 19th century education in physic
- rblinne, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Gravity actually is fairly well known as General Relativity has been confirmed multiple times and if this experiment succeeds this will be yet another feather in Einstein's cap. The same can be said about Quantum Mechanics. What is unknown is how these two integrate.
- Hannibalisfun, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0To What borchard76 said I think most of the particle physics and other small scale physics don't measure much directly and particle physics seems to be doing ok. This is also why ,like you said, they do the experiments multiple time. So I don't really think it is the time to weep. But these are just the thoughts of a high school student who reads way to many physics books.
- titoleibowitz, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Thanks for a link to a subscription site.
- jwick63, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Also "Decipher" by Stel Pavlou - more science Fiction based in science
- rblinne, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1This is too Euro-centric as it doesn't mention LIGO by name (http://wwwcascina.virgo.infn.it/collmeetings/presentations/2006/2006-04/Plenary/Marx-LIGO-Status%20report.pdf). This isn't merely the U.S. has their observatory and the Europeans have theirs. Since November 2005, LIGO and Geo 600 have been doing a joint run with the hopes of MAYBE seeing two events. The Journal Science noted LIGO as one of the breakthroughs of 2005 as follows:
Gravity rules. After years of refinements, the first phase of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) has reached its promised sensitivity. LIGO's laser chambers in Louisiana and Washington state will monitor the sky during most of 2006--with a smaller facility in Germany, called GEO-600, joining the network later in the year. If two neutron stars merge within 50 million light-years or so, the devices could detect the death spiral. It's a long shot, but we're betting they will.
The reason why no Digg is where's the news here? None of the observatories on either side of the pond have detected anything yet nor does the article talk about the next generation observatories such as the proposed LIGO 2 which would increase sensitivity by a factor of 10. - tungsai, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0It's interesting that Gravity is the big unknown right now, but it's SO important, that Sci-Fi shows like Star Trek, Star Wars, etc., assume that the artifical gravity in their spaceships is so reliable. Why? I can only guess because it's tough to film people floating around in Zero G all the time. Plus, it would maybe just alienate the audience after a while. Still, at least ONE episode of Star Trek where the artifical gravity goes out, and everybody's floating around, would be cool.
- rblinne, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Digg munged the URL I posted:
http://wwwcascina.virgo.infn.it/collmeetings/presentations/2006/2006-04/Plenary/Marx-LIGO-Status%20report.pdf - medi57, on 10/12/2007, -6/+2the former! :) and the latter! :)
- bardamu, on 10/12/2007, -6/+0If gravity is a liquid, shouldn't I be swimming right now instead of sitting at this damn desk?
- medi57, on 10/12/2007, -12/+1I still maintain that gravity is a liquid. Gravity waves... The behavior of gravity in acoustic black holes...It's all fitting into place.
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