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Scientists Have Detected Gravitational Waves Again

Rogue Valley

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Scientists Have Detected Gravitational Waves Again

6.16.2016

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Computer simulation of two black holes merging into one


For the second time this year, physicists at the Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational Waves Observatory (LIGO) are giddy with excitement. They’ve just confirmed the second detection of gravitational waves, ripples in the fabric of spacetime proposed by Albert Einstein a century ago. It seems we’ve officially entered the age of gravitational wave astronomy. The discovery was announced this afternoon at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society in San Diego, CA, and has been accepted for publication in Physical Review Letters.

Fascinating :)
 
Very cool. That's quite a monumental discovery. I can't wait to see what else they learn. :)
 
Can you guys explain the relavence for us cretins?
 
Can you guys explain the relavence for us cretins?
First, a shift in the gravitational force indicates a heavy presence that doesn't emit light and can't readily be detected. Second, anything that is new in the scientific community, like realizing the collision of 2 black holes, will set the scientific world a twitter. Third, the collision of black holes proves, again, that black holes do exist (as if further proof of black holes were needed) and here might be a good example to study the effects of black holes. Black holes are one of the squirreliest objects in the sky that might lead to further research in time travel, etc. Hey, black holes are squirrelly.
 
Can you guys explain the relavence for us cretins?

After the Big Bang all that existed in the dark and empty Universe was Hydrogen and Helium, mostly Hydrogen

Oh and Gravity, which pulled the Hydrogen atoms together to form the first Stars. These stars were massive and had relatively short life spans

In cores of these Stars the first heavy elements were being created and when these Stars went super nova, these elements were ejected out into the Universe where they were recycled into new Stars that formed even more heavy elements.

This cycle repeated to form rocky debris wich would be pulled together by Gravity to form the forst planets

So where did Gravity come from ?

Detection of gravitational waves lends credence to the quantum theory that gravity is created by subatomic massless particles called a graviton

Scientists can detect massless particles relatively easy ( photons ) but haven't been able to detect Gravitons due to Gravity being the weakest of the fundamental forces

Scientists have aslo been trying to fit Gravity into the Standard model, but without the existence of Gravitons its been impossible

Whats interesting is Gravity stops working on a atomic and moleculular scale
 
Can you guys explain the relavence for us cretins?

Adding to what others have posted, gravitational waves provide a new way of looking at the universe. Our main method of looking at the universe has been telescopes. But telescopes have limits: they only detect light. While different wavelengths (microwave, infrared) can help us look deeper than just the visible spectrum, there are parts of the galaxy and universe that just are too densely packed with dust and junk to look at properly.

Gravitational waves provide a possible new avenue for looking into places light can't.
 
Can you guys explain the relavence for us cretins?

It's one step closer to discovering where gravity comes from...and perhaps what created the universe.
 
It's one step closer to discovering where gravity comes from...and perhaps what created the universe.

Perhaps we will find God floating around somewhere just creatin' ****.

But this all reminds me of that ending scene from MIB:

 
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Perhaps we will find God floating around somewhere just creatin' ****.

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. I think if they found God floating around out there...nobody would believe it unless he looked like Moses. lol
 
Can you guys explain the relavence for us cretins?

I would ignore the answers given thus far, or at least take them with a grain of salt.

The correct answer is multi-pronged:

1.) Gravitational waves are a fundamental prediction of Einstein's theory of General Relativity. When you have objects spinning in particular ways (in technical terms, any system with a non-zero quadrupole moment), you will generate gravitational waves. This year's discoveries were the final crucial tests of General Relativity, and it was by a landslide the hardest test.

2.) Gravitational waves will provide a robust, totally new metric to look into the universe. It's a totally new way of observing the universe; there's tons of systems we could never hope to see, but if we get better and better at detecting gravitational waves, we'll have a whole new perspective into the universe by looking at what creates gravitational waves, rather than exclusively what creates light (which was previously our only window into the universe).

2'.) This will be necessary if we want to probe into what happened near the Big Bang. Once scientists get very good at detecting gravitational waves and improve the technology, there will plausibly be a time (maybe 30 years, maybe 50) where we can have a reasonably pristine vantage point into the Big Bang. No light or particles survive that period of time, but gravity waves would have survived (because they interact so weakly and infrequently). So if we want to know about what was going on within the first second of the Big Bang, so far as we know, this is the unique way we can explore that.

3.) Gravitational waves provide an interesting new probe into whether or not General Relativity is true. They will become more precise, and possible deviations of GR could be discovered, which would be interesting.

4.) On theoretical grounds, the existence of gravitational waves --combined with our knowledge of quantum physics-- pretty much tells us without a doubt that gravitons are the correct perspective, even if we can't see a single graviton quanta right now. An important feature of quantum mechanics is that all radiation (i.e. gravitational waves are a form of radiation) must be quantized. I won't go into much on that topic, but it's pretty much a universally accepted position right now in fundamental physics.

First, a shift in the gravitational force indicates a heavy presence that doesn't emit light and can't readily be detected.

Although a gravitational wave is essentially a shift of the gravitational force, it has nothing necessarily to do with black holes. The technical requirement is that the source of the wave needs to be spinning in specific ways. In this case, it means you need to have two spinning planets orbiting around each other, and if you want the signal to be strong, they should be orbiting very quickly.

The gravitational waves that we have detected, however, have been from black holes that are of order 10 times the mass of our sun falling into each other.

Second, anything that is new in the scientific community, like realizing the collision of 2 black holes, will set the scientific world a twitter. Third, the collision of black holes proves, again, that black holes do exist (as if further proof of black holes were needed) and here might be a good example to study the effects of black holes. Black holes are one of the squirreliest objects in the sky that might lead to further research in time travel, etc. Hey, black holes are squirrelly.

It's great indirect evidence of black holes, yes, which adds to other indirect evidence of black holes.

It's one step closer to discovering where gravity comes from...and perhaps what created the universe.

This is vague, but more or less right on the money.
 
I would ignore the answers given thus far, or at least take them with a grain of salt.

The correct answer is multi-pronged:

1.) Gravitational waves are a fundamental prediction of Einstein's theory of General Relativity. When you have objects spinning in particular ways (in technical terms, any system with a non-zero quadrupole moment), you will generate gravitational waves. This year's discoveries were the final crucial tests of General Relativity, and it was by a landslide the hardest test.

2.) Gravitational waves will provide a robust, totally new metric to look into the universe. It's a totally new way of observing the universe; there's tons of systems we could never hope to see, but if we get better and better at detecting gravitational waves, we'll have a whole new perspective into the universe by looking at what creates gravitational waves, rather than exclusively what creates light (which was previously our only window into the universe).

2'.) This will beignoresary if we want to probe into what happened near the Big Bang. Once scientists get very good at detecting gravitational waves and improve the technology, there will plausibly be a time (maybe 30 years, maybe 50) where we can have a reasonably pristine vantage point into the Big Bang. No light or particles survive that period of time, but gravity waves would have survived (because they interact so weakly and infrequently). So if we want to know about what was going on within the first second of the Big Bang, so far as we know, this is the unique way we can explore that.

3.) Gravitational waves provide an interesting new probe into whether or not General Relativity is true. They will become more precise, and possible deviations of GR could be discovered, which would be interesting.

4.) On theoretical grounds, the existence of gravitational waves --combined with our knowledge of quantum physics-- pretty much tells us without a doubt that gravitons are the correct perspective, even if we can't see a single graviton quanta right now. An important feature of quantum mechanics is that all radiation (i.e. gravitational waves are a form of radiation) must be quantized. I won't go into much on that topic, but it's pretty much a universally accepted position right now in fundamental physics.



Although a gravitational wave is essentially a shift of the gravitational force, it has nothing necessarily to do with black holes. The technical requirement is that the source of the wave needs to be spinning in specific ways. In this case, it means you need to have two spinning planets orbiting around each other, and if you want the signal to be strong, they should be orbiting very quickly.

The gravitational waves that we have detected, however, have been from black holes that are of order 10 times the mass of our sun falling into each other.



It's great indirect evidence of black holes, yes, which adds to other indirect evidence of black holes.



This is vague, but more or less right on the money.

Ignore the previous responses ? Why on earth would he want to do that ?

Is there something wrong with them and if there is, can you be specific ?

What exactly is wrong with what I posted ?

And there was no light immediately following the Big bang

Light only came into existence after the first Stars were created which was hundreds and millions of years after the Big bang

Prior to that the Universe was just a dark and empty sea of Hydrogen amd helium atoms
 
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