Gravitational Wave Hunt

[skeeterm5]

I read this http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-41420188 about Gravitational Wave hunting and then had to reread one particular part again as it is simply staggering.

The phrase that blows my mind is;

"the distortions are minute - the entire Earth is stretched and squeezed by less than the width of an atom."

Read that and then think about it, designing an experiment to measure an effect which when measured across the entire planet is less than the width of one atom - still mind blown.

S

[andy_s]

LISA is a plan to put 3 satellites in heliocentric orbit and have them align lasers to measure with more sensitivity.

[Hoofy]

Check out this course: https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/gravity/3

[andy_s]

Hoofy said:

Check out this course: https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/gravity/3

I'd certainly rec'd Carlo Rovelli's book 'Reality is not what it seems' which explores [loop] quantum gravity but in a massive story arch from Democritus onward, very easy reading, relatively.

[steveT350C]

Is this news?....

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-space-science/in...

[realjv]

If you are looking for a good account of the LIGO, both the technical and political difficulties involved in such a long term and cutting edge project I can highly recommend "Black Hole Blues and Other Songs From Outer Space" by Janna Levin.

[Efbe]

is the gravitational wave measured a positive or negative one, or if both which comes first?

[Atomic12C]

andy_s said:

LISA is a plan to put 3 satellites in heliocentric orbit and have them align lasers to measure with more sensitivity.

Is that in Earth-Sun Lagrange point orbit(s) ?

[MartG]

Data from the experiments seems to confirm that gravity travels at the speed of light

http://www.sciencealert.com/speed-of-gravitational...

[Efbe]

MartG said:

Data from the experiments seems to confirm that gravity travels at the speed of light

http://www.sciencealert.com/speed-of-gravitational...

Good to hear this validated.
Though really couldn't imagine another scenario

Next question for me is what affects gravity?

[MartG]

Efbe said:

Next question for me is what affects gravity?

Reversing the polarity of the neutron flow of course

[Efbe]

MartG said:

Efbe said:

Next question for me is what affects gravity?

Reversing the polarity of the neutron flow of course

haha, yes quite.

though I would actually expect light to have an effect on gravity, equal in strength to gravity's effect on light, which is to say, not very strong! This implications of this could be quite huge, though, and my maths isn't up to scratch for this, could also explain part of the missing mass of the universe, maybe even negating our need for dark matter.