Follow along with the video below to see how to install our site as a web app on your home screen.
Note: This feature may not be available in some browsers.
Seems pretty ambitious and unscientific to state with complete certainty that the so-called "chirp" was caused by the gravitational waves. Seems to me there is any number of possible reasons why that might happen.
I'd be happy to hear what those reasons are.Seems pretty ambitious and unscientific to state with complete certainty that the so-called "chirp" was caused by the gravitational waves. Seems to me there is any number of possible reasons why that might happen.
I'd be happy to hear what those reasons are.
Those are pretty impressive results. I knew the strain was small, but just looking at that exponent impressed me.
John
The amazing part is that they could measure it at all.
The system must be able to measure distances as small as 10E-19 meter.
The proton has a radius of about 0.85 × 10E-15 meter, or 10,000 times larger.
That's why Einstein thought they would never be able to measure it.
Hi,
Yes it is quite an acheivement in human science history, and the ramifications are quite amazng too.
An interesting point is that particular event only occurs once, period, in the entire history of the universe.
I have always been amazed at the amount of energy in the universe, and in particular the amount of energy in some cosmic events.
I see now that it looks like the amount of energy released in that ONE collision, in a total time of less than 100 milliseconds, would have been enough to keep life on earth as it is right now today, for about 60 billion years! That's just too much energy to comprehend.
Calculate the surface area of the earth in square meters: 4*pi*(6.4e6)^2=5.15e+14
Multiply times number of hours in one year: 1.62e22
Multiply that by 60e9: 9.72e32 kilowatt hours
So about 1e33 kilowatt hours.
That's a billion trillion trillion kilowatt hours.
We are very very lucky that this did not happen nearby or the earth would have been destroyed.
OK, I sorta get all the science stuff, gamma rays and gravity waves. What I don't see is the connection to time travel. I believe time travel is a concept but not a real thing, just a myth.
You can't go back to a time in history because it happened already! You are by definition too late. It's done.
Time travel to the future is easy, and I have perfected it on my living room couch. Simple: just wait for it.
I find it hard to believe this was detectable with a 2.5 mile detector. If you had a detector that was from here to the sun it would change length by 1 part in 5 x 10^22
Distance to sun 150,000,000 km
150,000,000/5 x 10^22 = 3 x 10^-15
That is 3 nm or about 1/200th of the wavelength of red light. And there detector was 30 million times smaller!
It's either very incredible or very suspicious.
Just saying,
Mike.
Edit, Seems the sensitivity claimed is 1 in 5 x 10^22, gravity waves distort by 1 in 10^20. So, I was out by a factor of 500!! Their 4km detector would distort 400 X 10^-15 m = 400 femto meters!!!