Gravitational waves

[BushBlade]

Fatty, thats just it, the waves are so microscopic in amplitude, I'm half expecting waves of inaccuracy in a few weeks time plus an apology, an excuse and a retraction

- do you remember the Italians decided that particles had been escaping CERN and smashing their way through the alps and dolomites at faster than the speed of light a couple of years back? a month later they decided that, surprise, surprise, they had mis-measured the distance, the accuracies required are as far as I'm concerned, unsurveyable.

- still the Italian mob were trying to prove Einstein wrong, at least the latest findings agree with old Albert and that lends the results a certain gravitas.....



the flip remarks about Doncaster by other contributors do them no credit whatsoever, as its the centre of the universe.

But it resembles the centre of an anus.

 

[vorpal blade]

more like your anus you mean ! fnarr fnarr

 

[William Henry Foulkes]

Fatty, thats just it, the waves are so microscopic in amplitude, I'm half expecting waves of inaccuracy in a few weeks time plus an apology, an excuse and a retraction

- do you remember the Italians decided that particles had been escaping CERN and smashing their way through the alps and dolomites at faster than the speed of light a couple of years back? a month later they decided that, surprise, surprise, they had mis-measured the distance, the accuracies required are as far as I'm concerned, unsurveyable.

- still the Italian mob were trying to prove Einstein wrong, at least the latest findings agree with old Albert and that lends the results a certain gravitas.....



the flip remarks about Doncaster by other contributors do them no credit whatsoever, as its the centre of the universe.

IIRC the point about the FTL neutrinos(?) was that the experimenters thought their results were anomalous but they couldn't work out why so they put their data in the public domain where it was picked over and an explanation was found. Which is what they expected.

They did not say, Take that Einstein.

It was a far more exciting *story* and a remote possibility that they had found FTL neutrinos but I'm almost certain that was never their claim. It was the clickbait angle.

This just isn't how mainstream science works.

Occasionally funding desperate teams will concoct PR friendly stories but this was never that.

I'm pretty sure there was a recent astronomical observation that could be taken as evidence of an Alien Megastructure but of all the possible explanations that is one of the remotest. It wouldn't take much for a journalist to write that story but nowhere are the research team making that claim.

"Professor Plum Finds Possible Evidence of Alien Megastructure" would be strictly true, but at no point has Professor Plum made that claim though it looks a lot like he has.

Explanation turns out to be more, er, down to Earth. Professor Plum is discredited despite never claiming anything of the sort.

And are you really saying about aLIGO that bc you don't believe/understand it it can't be true?

 

[vorpal blade]

Blimey Fatty you're going in right over my pay grade on this stuff. I don't even know what IIRC means ?

No, I'm a bit skeptical about breakthroughs like this at first because, as you know, Universities and related Institutions are ALL about funding and more and more about publicity, like you say, if the results are proven again experimentally, and then again repeatedly then I'll believe it. In the first weeks after the publicity barage though, allow me some room for doubt.

Its not long since that some bloke announced he had proved Fermat only for someone to point out that he hadn't done his maths properly, (I know he managed it correctly later) so give it time.....

Yes, Neutrinos - though why the hell they had to name them after a well known Garage act, I'll never knowingly know.

 

[lazyfecklessblade]

This might be wandering off topic but in case anyone's interested PBS Space Time have done a fairly high level explainer here on how they were found.



And this is their video from the time of the discovery.

Whilst a great move forward for astronomy (gravity telescopes will do great things), their simulation does bear a striking resemblance to the 90's Windows Media player graphic equalizer - I call bullshit.

 

[William Henry Foulkes]

Blimey Fatty you're going in right over my pay grade on this stuff. I don't even know what IIRC means ?

No, I'm a bit skeptical about breakthroughs like this at first because, as you know, Universities and related Institutions are ALL about funding and more and more about publicity, like you say, if the results are proven again experimentally, and then again repeatedly then I'll believe it. In the first weeks after the publicity barage though, allow me some room for doubt.

Its not long since that some bloke announced he had proved Fermat only for someone to point out that he hadn't done his maths properly, (I know he managed it correctly later) so give it time.....

Yes, Neutrinos - though why the hell they had to name them after a well known Garage act, I'll never knowingly know.

I get all that but the discovery was last September. They've spent the time since then verifying it.

It's a similar process to the announcement about the Higgs Boson. It was in the air for a while but they held off official announcement till they were statistically sure.

Or as sure as they can be about anything.

It will take a while to become established but it's different from the neutrinos.

Also Wiles's proof was all his own work. It hadn't been checked. That's when the error was found and fixed.

The fact they've gone public with the results means it's much more analogous to the proof of Fermat's Last Theorem *after* it had been fixed.

(Don't claim I'm an expert in this. Just a keen amateur with a longstanding interest.)

IIRC If I remember correctly

It's hard to argue that scepticism is not a good thing but at some point you have to take sides and say this has happened.

 

[blade too long]

When alls said and done its still theoretical, his proof supports the possibility hes right
when I were a nipper we were told gravity came from the molten iron earths core, but in truth no ones ever proven thats right
continental drift was why America moved a thousand miles
coal came from tropical forest smashed by an ice age, and they say the weathers changing now, so it didnt then tropical to arctic

its all guess work masquerading as scientific theory
at least pete blade is proof we are descendant from monkeys

 

[Wapping Blade]

When alls said and done its still theoretical, his proof supports the possibility hes right
when I were a nipper we were told gravity came from the molten iron earths core, but in truth no ones ever proven thats right
continental drift was why America moved a thousand miles
coal came from tropical forest smashed by an ice age, and they say the weathers changing now, so it didnt then tropical to arctic

its all guess work masquerading as scientific theory
at least pete blade is proof we are descendant from monkeys

WTF are you talking about?

 

[blade too long]

its theory
what were taken as being true 200 years ago 100 years ago and even 10 years ago have all bit the dust
this is another theory , that seems plausible , but cant be verified as a million per cent certain

reality is even being questioned , are we real,
quantam physics , truth , or a ruse to get lots of money for "research"

 

[northsomersetblade]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell's_teapot

So what are you saying, there's teapot out there in space, too tiny to see with the most powerful telescope, but looking down on us all the same?

Is it a, er, vengeful teapot do you think? Do you think we ought to worship it and make effigies of it, just in case it gets cross or something?

 

[BushBlade]

So what are you saying, there's teapot out there in space, too tiny to see with the most powerful telescope, but looking down on us all the same?

Is it a, er, vengeful teapot do you think? Do you think we ought to worship it and make effigies of it, just in case it gets cross or something?

If we worship it, it will help us defeat our enemies and make our crops grow.

 

[northsomersetblade]

If we worship it, it will help us defeat our enemies and make our crops grow.

Will it make our women fertile and bring the sun back from its midwinter low?