[Pudu]

It's been a hundred years since Albert Einstein gave us General Relativity. Are we getting gravitational waves in about 15 minutes from now?

"National Science Foundation brings together the scientists from Caltech, MIT and the LIGO Scientific Collaboration (LSC) (today) at 10:30 a.m (EST) ... for a status report on the effort to detect gravitational waves - or ripples in the fabric of spacetime - using the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO). "


live webcast here

Edit:

[COLOR=000066] Gravitational Waves Detected 100 Years After Einstein's Prediction - LIGO Opens New Window on the Universe with Observation of Gravitational Waves from Colliding Black Holes


For the first time, scientists have observed ripples in the fabric of spacetime called gravitational waves, arriving at the earth from a cataclysmic event in the distant universe. This confirms a major prediction of Albert Einstein’s 1915 general theory of relativity and opens an unprecedented new window onto the cosmos.

Gravitational waves carry information about their dramatic origins and about the nature of gravity that cannot otherwise be obtained. Physicists have concluded that the detected gravitational waves were produced during the final fraction of a second of the merger of two black holes to produce a single, more massive spinning black hole. This collision of two black holes had been predicted but never observed.

The gravitational waves were detected on September 14, 2015 at 5:51 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time (09:51 UTC) by both of the twin Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) detectors, located in Livingston, Louisiana, and Hanford, Washington, USA.

con't...[/COLOR]


Some good Q&A with an astrophysicist here.

 

[Pudu]

Spoiler: told you...

 

[Pudu]

Seriously, not a single person is interested in what is thus far one of, if not the most important and exciting scientific discoveries of this century? No amateur physicists or cosmologists among us? How about professional ones? No one?

sigh

Okay, back to threads about recipes and how electrons moving through silver makes music magical .

 

[Allanmarcus]

I am, but then again, I work at the Los Alamos National Lab, so we care!

 

[wink]

I thought thet current scientific thinking was departing from black holes and event horizons because of the problem of event horizons destroying information which is supposed to be indestructible...
 
SO, we now have two super-massively dense neutron stars with firewalls instead of event horizons furiously gyrating around each other in a continuously accelerating death spiral until they coalesce int one, or the smaller mass breaks up due to Roche's limit and gets consumed by the greater mass.
 
This sends out ripples along the fabric of space which is then picked up by sentient beings which are looking for these very things to prove some esoteric theories as valid.
 
If these gravity waves are special enough, and garner enough public notoriety, they may be asked to perform on America's Got Talent, or Superbowl 2017.......  

 

[wuwhere]

I guess we don't have to worry about being hit by a very strong gravitational wave like a Tsunami gravitational wave that would knock us off the universe.

 

[wink]

This is theologically not possible

 

[Allanmarcus]

  I guess we don't have to worry about being hit by a very strong gravitational wave like a Tsunami gravitational wave that would knock us off the universe.

Those are very heavy thoughts. 

 

[oldmate]

It's been a hundred years since Albert Einstein gave us General Relativity. Are we getting gravitational waves in about 15 minutes from now?

"National Science Foundation brings together the scientists from Caltech, MIT and the LIGO Scientific Collaboration (LSC) (today) at 10:30 a.m (EST) ... for a status report on the effort to detect gravitational waves - or ripples in the fabric of spacetime - using the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO). "


live webcast here

Edit:

Gravitational Waves Detected 100 Years After Einstein's Prediction - LIGO Opens New Window on the Universe with Observation of Gravitational Waves from Colliding Black Holes


For the first time, scientists have observed ripples in the fabric of spacetime called gravitational waves, arriving at the earth from a cataclysmic event in the distant universe. This confirms a major prediction of Albert Einstein’s 1915 general theory of relativity and opens an unprecedented new window onto the cosmos.

Gravitational waves carry information about their dramatic origins and about the nature of gravity that cannot otherwise be obtained. Physicists have concluded that the detected gravitational waves were produced during the final fraction of a second of the merger of two black holes to produce a single, more massive spinning black hole. This collision of two black holes had been predicted but never observed.

The gravitational waves were detected on September 14, 2015 at 5:51 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time (09:51 UTC) by both of the twin Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) detectors, located in Livingston, Louisiana, and Hanford, Washington, USA.

con't...


Some good Q&A with an astrophysicist here.

Just f&^%ing great - this will feed the starving kids in Syria. Scientifically important yes but how does it benefit humanity in any way and how much did it cost??

 

[gikigill]

The Apollo mission to the moon ushered in a new age of scientific discovery but going to the moon never filled anyone's stomach.

This discovery helps us understand our universe better and possibly how it started.

Science doesn't tell you what to do, it tells you how to it. There's enough food in the world today to feed every single person due to scientific discoveries in improving food production but science won't fix the problem of human greed and ego. We would rather destroy food we grew using science rather then feed it to those in need just so we can have a few more silver pieces in our pockets.

 

[Pudu]

Just f&^%ing great - this will feed the starving kids in Syria. Scientifically important yes but how does it benefit humanity in any way and how much did it cost??

It's a good and often asked question. "What has science (which my tax dollars pay for) done for me lately?"

Einstein's General Theory of Relativity predicted the existence of these up till now elusive gravitational waves. This same theory is necessary to create and operate the Global Positioning System.

Early in 2011 most of the citizens of Libya were finally fed up with living under the bizarrely horrific rule of Muammar Gaddafi for the previous 41 years. Early on, they fought the Colonel's tanks using homemade weapons like crossbows that hurled molotov cocktails. Eventually NATO agreed to provide air support to these people who were fighting to take back their country. Ordinary people on the ground identified tank positions, munitions depots, and strategic targets using their mobile phones and Google Earth. Then they used Twitter to relay these locations to NATO who could send fighter-bombers to destroy them. They toppled Gaddafi and removed one of the most repressive regimes of the past 50 years.

Einstein didn't have this intention in mind when he decided that our then current understanding of the "force" of gravity wasn't quite good enough and so came up with a theory that changed the entire way we think about space and time. Nor did any of these folks when they came up with the ideas of Quantum Mechanics - which are necessary to make a mobile phone.


I would assume.



Check out this podcast - The Infinite Monkey Cage - Serendipity . It's hosted by a particle physicist and a comedian and it's full of hugely interesting things about the world and science, and it's hilarious.

 

[oldmate]

It's a good and often asked question. "What has science (which my tax dollars pay for) done for me lately?"

Well not lately as such but it gave us the ability to drop nuclear weapons on non military targets in the second world war. Just the US alone have an arsenal of 7200 nuclear bombs. Oppenheimer and Einstein later regretted there contribution to the Manhattan project with Einstein himself saying " Had I known that the Germans would not succeed in producing an atomic bomb," he said, "I would have never lifted a finger."

 

[Hutnicks]

To the OP. Now you know why no one replied to your thread. See how fast it disintegrated?

 

[gikigill]

Well not lately as such but it gave us the ability to drop nuclear weapons on non military targets in the second world war. Just the US alone have an arsenal of 7200 nuclear bombs. Oppenheimer and Einstein later regretted there contribution to the Manhattan project with Einstein himself saying "[COLOR=333333] Had I known that the Germans would not succeed in producing an atomic bomb," he said, "I would have never lifted a finger."[/COLOR]

Read my previous comment again, science doesn't tell you what to do. It's up to us as to what we want to do with it.

 

[oldmate]

Read my previous comment again, science doesn't tell you what to do. It's up to us as to what we want to do with it.

I did read your comment and it's not up to us per say, that is you and I.  Its up to the useless politicians who's only skill is to get elected and then in today's "democratic" society we have the fact that corporate interests have captured the entire democratic process and they are the ones who choose what we want to do with it not us. I'm just cannon fodder buddy.
 
Democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people.
 
Anyway, now that I've mistakenly turned this into a political debate I best shut up.
 
I love astrophysics as much as the next person and Neil deGrasse Tyson's Cosmos A Space Tome Odyssey TV series was absolutely riveting stuff. I also have Carl Sagan's A Personage Voyage. I still think these incredibly intelligent scientists tend to tow the line in order to get their funding and should speak up and do more for humanity in general.