Results?
23 Feb 2006 2:14:21 UTC
Topic 190820
(moderation:
Have any of the gravity wave detection projects actually detected any gravity waves?
Are researchers sure they will/have detect(ed) gravity waves?
At what point will researchers abandon the current method of trying to detect gravity waves and seek other means?
It would be nice to know if these projects are getting anywhere.
Results?
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At least this project was not successful up until now.
Read the First report on the S3 analysis.
Michael
Team Linux Users Everywhere
RE: At least this project
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Thank you for your reply Michael. After looking over the link you provided, I believe your intent was to say that this project has not been sucessful.
IMHO, I'm sorry to say that I don't believe it will ever be successful. Specifically, I don't believe gravity waves exist. The effects of gravity are only associated with matter and there does not appear to be any limit on its reach. If that is the case then matter anywhere influences matter everywhere else. And a "wave" of gravity could only be associated with matter moving with it.
I prefer to think of gravity as invisible, unbreakable rubber bands permeating the universe, connecting all matter, everywhere. If matter jerks on those rubber bands, they stretch uniformly without creating any waves at all.
Even if a wave were created using the presumptions of these experiments, I believe that the detectors themselves would be affected by the variation in space-time so as to allow the wave to pass through undetected.
Now watch, someone will detect a gravity wave, just to prove me wrong.
RE: Now watch, someone will
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Hopefully...
CGOS, take a look at
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CGOS, take a look at http://einsteinathome.org/
These questions are very well explained there (and in much better english than mine)
The existence of gravitational waves is a prediction of Einstein's theory of relativity. A prediction not fully confirmed, (by direct gravitional waves observation) but with proved indirect evidences. You can read it here:
http://einsteinathome.org/gwaves/detection/index.html
This experiment is trying to confirm Einstein's prediction. It has not been successful up to the date in detecting a gravitational wave, but now is just too soon, the observatories involved in this research are not still working at full sensitivity. One essential part of this project is to help the scientists to run the equipment at its best sensitiity, in order to detect gravitational waves during the nexts years.
So, the project is being very successful according to this goal.
Your opinion about gravitation is interesting, and very respectable, but is not the same as the vision contained in Einstein's theories. No theory of gravitation is perfect and fully confirmed, so we have to keep working and time will tell....
You can ask about gravity waves in the "Science" forum, there you probably will get more detailed answers from the physicists involved in this research.
RE: RE: At least this
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This project won't be successful only if it can't tell whether gravity waves exist or not. It can be argued that this project will be more successful if it can prove that they don't exist.
I was reading recently that the value of G (the gravitational constant) has been changed after the re-examination of a 10 year old experiment in which the scientific community had put considerable trust. The experimenters were very careful, and their result stood up to the test of their peers, but it didn't match the rest of the body of data very well. It just goes to show that experiments that have to do with gravity are very tricky, because of the smallness of effects involved and the amount of noise you have to filter out. But eventually, the test of time and the accumulation of evidence on either side should decide. Just don't expect anything earth-shattering by tomorrow ;-)
RE: ...It can be argued
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Since the GW radiation doesn't get scattered like EM radiation, the LIGO technique promises to provide a picture of the cosmos with unequaled clarity, even (especially) providing insight about black hole mergers... I think this would be the greatest success...
Hi, It's my impression
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Hi,
It's my impression that: 1. If the current gravitational theory is correct, and 2. the theory, instrument and software developers have "done their sums" correctly, S4 data stands a good chance of finding gravitational waves. If they are not observed the math will have to be checked. If the math is OK then the theory will become suspect and new theory will have to be conceived. If they are observed then we will have another "window" on the universe with the probability of really neat discoveries. In any case we have all helped to advance our understanding of the universe. Positive results are much more satisfying, but negative results while not very satisfying personally, help just as much. This is how science progresses.
Joe B
RE: Have any of the gravity
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Bear in mind that the design of current LIGO's was not intended to exclude gravity waves per se, but put upper bounds on detectable phenomena of various types, all the while honing techniques, experience and design to drag noise levels down. It was known at design time that this would be the case, and that it was likely that more precise versions to come, ie. LIGO II 's, would answer questions more definitively. While it would be a hoot if waves were confirmed by current methods, it would by no means be 'failure' if not. This was the predicted situation long before any sods were turned.
(edit) Oh, and non-detection of waves when the equipment is up to it, would still not be a failure of the program. It would be a measurement that indicates review of theory toward a more accurate description of reality is required. Such is the scientific method that actively seeks falsification of even its most basic premises.
I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to make it shorter ...
... and my other CPU is a Ryzen 5950X :-) Blaise Pascal
CGOS, No project has yet
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CGOS,
No project has yet directly detected gravitational waves. But I would not say that this means the projects have been unsuccessful.
For starters, not so long ago a lot of very famous astrophysicists were saying that LIGO could never achieve the level of sensitivity that it has been at for the past few months. Yet here it is.
This sensitivity, called the initial design goal, is still at the point where we are not too surprised if we detect nothing for a while. But over the next few years the sensitivity will be improving, and by early next decade - as others have mentioned in this thread - it will actually be more interesting if we don't find anything than if we do, because it will mean much of what we believe about neutron stars and black holes is wrong.
Even now, when we are merely at the initial design goal, we have a fighting chance to detect something. Empirical confirmation comes from bookies getting taken for a ride. And the chances get better year after year, as more data comes in and the instruments get upgraded.
And even now, when we are merely at the initial design goal, non-detections (upper limits) can start saying interesting things about certain neutron stars sooner than we thought, as described briefly in some of the background reading for the S3 report linked from the E@H front page.
As for why we believe gravitational waves exist, there is background information at einsteinathome.org as others have pointed out. It's basically a straightforward consequence of the finite speed of light (if you tweak one end of the rubber band, it takes a finite time for the other end to feel it) and was indeed one of the first consequences of relativity Einstein worked out, about a year after the initial presentation of the theory.
Hope this helps,
Ben