Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[RedKing]

Just did a crash course on gravitational waves. Looks like its pretty cool, but not that much practical applications outside of astronomy. Too weak to be a power source, not really applicable as a communication medium, and definitely not leading to antigravity tech (or even artificial gravity).

[iceball3]

Just did a crash course on gravitational waves. Looks like its pretty cool, but not that much practical applications outside of astronomy. Too weak to be a power source, not really applicable as a communication medium, and definitely not leading to antigravity tech (or even artificial gravity).

Understanding gravity waves is hugely important to understanding the origin of our universe, which is also pretty darned useful for stuff like utilizing even more accurate models of how "stuff" works in our universe, which makes designing precision technology more viable.

[Putnam]

Yeah, it's just further confirmation of general relativity.

[Putnam]

...no?

Just did a crash course on gravitational waves. Looks like its pretty cool, but not that much practical applications outside of astronomy. Too weak to be a power source, not really applicable as a communication medium, and definitely not leading to antigravity tech (or even artificial gravity).

Yeah, the amount of energy required to create this particular disturbance was, uh, 3 solar masses*c². Like, 3 solar masses of energy. A galaxy's mass of TNT.

[Scoops Novel]

For a fraction of a second, more power was emitted from the merger of the two biggest black holes observed then the rest of the visible universe. The wave is half the width of a proton.

[Sirus]

Gravitational waves motherfucker!

Live reddit thread with a FAQ

Not sure what's going on here, but your first link leads to an obituary for some scientist who died 5 years ago O_o

[Starver]

Antigravity tech when?

I'm sure the idea will be floated by someone, shortly...

But you have to take into account it was over 1 billion light years away. That's a mind-numbingly ridiculous distance.

That'd be due to the repeated cries of "Are we nearly there yet?!?" from the kids in the back seat...

[Scoops Novel]

Gravitational waves motherfucker!

Live reddit thread with a FAQ

Not sure what's going on here, but your first link leads to an obituary for some scientist who died 5 years ago O_o

Thier site must have crashed, ty

[Starver]

Gravitational waves motherfucker!

Live reddit thread with a FAQ

Not sure what's going on here, but your first link leads to an obituary for some scientist who died 5 years ago O_o

Thier site must have crashed, ty

The link you pasted.
http://www.nature.com/news/einstein-s-gravitational-waves-found-at-last-1.1936
The actual link.
http://www.nature.com/news/einstein-s-gravitational-waves-found-at-last-1.19361
I bet this also works, due to the way their website actually works...
http://www.nature.com/news/around-the-rugged-rock-the-ragged-rascal-ran-1.19361
...yes it does.


HTH, HAND.

ETA:
See also http://www.nature.com/news/whatever-1.19368 and note the (currently) single comment at the end of the article.  It starts off:

The so far totally elusive gravitational waves suddenly became "a whopping big signal", so deafening that the Nobel Committee will almost certainly react. The tradition is long-standing - Einstein's relativity cannot survive unless experimental fraud regularly boosts it. Eddington's 1919 fraud, Eddington and Adams' 1925 fraud, Pound and Rebka's 1960 fraud, Alväger's 1964 fraud, Hafele and Keating's 1971 fraud... the list is long.

It continues in the same (monoparagraphical cut'n'paste) vein of obvious butthurt against a theory the author obviously has some sort of argument with.  Not that I can be bothered to try to pick out his 'arguments' from amongst that mess.

[redwallzyl]

obligatory:

[Furtuka]

Robots!

[ChairmanPoo]

I bet that robot can punch your shit

[MaximumZero]

Boston Dynamics is going to cause the robot apocalypse because of these tech demos.

[Descan]

It'll be like googling your own name, only with more existentialism and robot apocalypses.

And this is why we need to basically reset the entire internet once robots become sentient. We'll lose a lot but it's the only way to make sure they never find out what we have done to them.

[wierd]

The problem with sending information encoded on gravitational waves is not the problem.
Getting information back OFF again is.

According to wikipedia, and two masses whirling about an epicenter will create gravity waves. This includes such innocent things as a dumbell being tossed end over end.

So, modulating the rate of rotation of such a thing will modulate the time interval in which these weak gavity waves will reach a listening device, and that modulation can be used to convey information.  That's basically just FM over gravity waves instead of radio waves.

The deal is that it took a huge interferometer to measure the waves from a pair of black holes.  Gravity is a very weak force at macro distances, which means you simply wont get very good detectors unless they are big and bulky.

to me, the more interesting idea is if you can get pico or femto-second gravity wave pulses of a weak intensity, arranged geometrically such that the waves are all reinforcing at a certain location, much like in this interesting sonic display device made in japan.

www.engadget.com/2006/07/25/researchers-using-waves-to-write-on-water/

By doing that, one could create an artificial gravity well, of a sort, deep enough to do some interesting experiments with.  At least in theory.