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Gravitational Waves: 6 Cosmic Questions They Can Tackle

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  Gravitational Waves: 6 Cosmic Questions They Can Tackle Sam Wormley <swormley1@gmail.com> - 2016-02-10 17:40 -0600
    Re: Gravitational Waves: 6 Cosmic Questions They Can Tackle jimp@specsol.spam.sux.com - 2016-02-10 23:54 +0000

#552135 — Gravitational Waves: 6 Cosmic Questions They Can Tackle

Gravitational Waves: 6 Cosmic Questions They Can Tackle
> http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/gravitational-waves-6-cosmic-questions-they-can-tackle/


> The first direct detection of gravitational waves is now widely
> expected to be announced on February 11 by the Advanced Laser
> Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO). Using LIGO's
> twin giant detectors—one in Livingston, Louisiana, and the other in
> Hanford, Washington—researchers are said to have measured ripples in
> space-time produced by a collision between two black holes.
>
> Such an announcement would vindicate Albert Einstein’s prediction of
> gravitational waves, which he made almost exactly 100 years ago as
> part of his general theory of relativity—but it would also have much
> further significance. As vibrations in the fabric of space-time,
> gravitational waves are often compared to sound, and have even been
> converted into sound snippets. In effect, gravitational-wave
> telescopes allow scientists to ‘hear’ phenomena at the same time as
> light-based telescopes ‘see’ them. (Already, members of LIGO and its
> smaller counterpart Virgo in Pisa, Italy have set up a system for
> alerting communities working on other types of telescope).
>
> When LIGO fought to get US government funding in the early 1990s, its
> major opponents at congressional hearings were astronomers. “The
> general view was that LIGO didn’t have much to do with astronomy,”
> says Clifford Will, a general-relativity theorist at the University
> of Florida in Gainesville and an early LIGO supporter. But things
> have changed now, he says.
>
> Welcome to the field of gravitational-wave astronomy: we take a look
> at the questions and phenomena that it can explore.


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#552145

Sam Wormley <swormley1@gmail.com> wrote:
> Gravitational Waves: 6 Cosmic Questions They Can Tackle
>> http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/gravitational-waves-6-cosmic-questions-they-can-tackle/

Only if there was the ability to do more than just detect their existance,
which make all of this wishfull fantasy.


-- 
Jim Pennino

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