Gravitational waves: breakthrough discovery after two centur

[Halb]

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/feb/11/gr...

http://gizmodo.com/holy-st-scientists-have-confi...

[Toltec]

Less a discovery and more a confirmation of a theory, not to mention a very nice piece of work, a good day for science.

[Hooli]

Bloody impressive bit of work that.

[LordGrover]

Didn't they say something similar a couple of years ago, but retracted later?

[DrTre]

LordGrover said:

Didn't they say something similar a couple of years ago, but retracted later?

That was a test of the internal organisation, media and world response or something a little bizarre.
I'll see if I can find a link.

Got it wrong, it was to test whether the team could recognise a response.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/across-the-uni...

(Assuming this is what you were on about)

Edited by DrTre on Friday 12th February 13:18

[warp9]

I appreciate that this confirms part of Einstein's theory of relativity, but can someone explain the implications from a layman's point of view? I'm struggling to see how this makes any practical difference to scientific research, the current models we use and everyday life.

Obviously I don't know much about this. Thanks.

[pherlopolus]

My thoughts are that it gives us another method of finding "big" things out in space as an alternative to radio/optical telescopes.

[LordGrover]

DrTre said:

LordGrover said:

Didn't they say something similar a couple of years ago, but retracted later?

That was a test of the internal organisation, media and world response or something a little bizarre.
I'll see if I can find a link.

Got it wrong, it was to test whether the team could recognise a response.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/across-the-uni...

(Assuming this is what you were on about)

That must've been it. Apols.

[Leithen]

A graphical explanation for those of us needing to get to first base on this breakthrough.

[ReallyReallyGood]

Leithen said:

A graphical explanation for those of us needing to get to first base on this breakthrough.

Thanks, that's the best attempt I've read yet at explaining it to imbeciles like myself.

[DrTre]

LordGrover said:

That must've been it. Apols.

No apology needed, i am fairly sure there was an announcement of concerning the possible discovery of the waves, but the subsequent real events were not so widely publicised.

[warp9]

Leithen said:

A graphical explanation for those of us needing to get to first base on this breakthrough.

Thanks, nicely explained and a really interesting site.

So do we now just have to recalibrate our existing telescopes to get 'grav view' or are we going to have to build massive new 4km x 4km devices to detect these tiny ripples?

[Mojocvh]

warp9 said:

I appreciate that this confirms part of Einstein's theory of relativity, but can someone explain the implications from a layman's point of view? I'm struggling to see how this makes any practical difference to scientific research, the current models we use and everyday life.

Obviously I don't know much about this. Thanks.

Hmm...

[Moonhawk]

warp9 said:

I appreciate that this confirms part of Einstein's theory of relativity, but can someone explain the implications from a layman's point of view? I'm struggling to see how this makes any practical difference to scientific research, the current models we use and everyday life.

Obviously I don't know much about this. Thanks.

Current practical applications - probably none, other than it further reinforces Einstein's theory and gives us another tool with which to explore the universe.

Future applications - who knows. Did Einstein foresee the practical applications of the Laser when he formulated his theory in 1917 - or did Theodore Maiman when he created the first functional Laser in 1960?

Sometimes science may seem pie in the sky at the time - but society may come to rely on that science in years to come. Can you imagine a world without Lasers?

[Derek Smith]

Everyone states that gravity waves 'move' at the speed of light. Therefore, in my universe at least, it means they can't have mass.

So what are they 'made' of?

[Halb]

[Toltec]

Derek Smith said:

So what are they 'made' of?

Quite.

[Moonhawk]

Derek Smith said:

Everyone states that gravity waves 'move' at the speed of light. Therefore, in my universe at least, it means they can't have mass.

So what are they 'made' of?

They seem to be described a bit like compression waves in the fabric of spacetime - so I guess they are similar to sound waves in air.

What are the waves made of - the medium through which they are travelling

So in the case of sound waves - they are made of air and in the case of gravitational waves - they are made of spacetime (if the analogy is valid).

[Halb]

I was reading the Science of Discworld 4 recently, and got to the chapter where they talk about what the universe is made of. Everything is made of fermions and bosuns though that may change as we go on. We originally thought stuff was earth, air, fire, water.

[tapkaJohnD]

LordGrover said:

DrTre said:

LordGrover said:

Didn't they say something similar a couple of years ago, but retracted later?

That was a test of the internal organisation, media and world response or something a little bizarre.
I'll see if I can find a link.

Got it wrong, it was to test whether the team could recognise a response.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/across-the-uni...

(Assuming this is what you were on about)

That must've been it. Apols.

No, you were right, the BICEP2 experiment, looking at the Cosmic Microwave Background, the 'echo' of the Big Bang, claimed to have found evidence of gravity waves in 2014.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/gravity-...
But later the effects reported were found to be from 'dust on the lens' (an unkind remark - properly 'dust in our own galaxy').
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-3105...

John