Gravity Waves

[Brian]

I won a gentlemen's wager, BTW, as to the shape this thread would take.

[Karl]

I won a gentlemen's wager, BTW, as to the shape this thread would take.

 

That's gravity for you, it always creates a familiar shape.

[Brian]

I suppose we could have just stopped with Aristotelian physics. Would have saved a lot of money over the centuries, I guess.

[Zhongyongdaoist]

I suppose we could have just stopped with Aristotelian physics. Would have saved a lot of money over the centuries, I guess.

 

Let's not be too harsh on Aristotelian physics, the formulation of gravity in General Relativity as a "least action" principle moving to minimize the energy by having masses move in the direction of the "deepest" gravity well has a rough equivalence to Aristotle's principle of "natural place".  I wish I had more time to comment on this but I don't.  If I do I will come back to this thread and make waves of considerable gravity.

 

 

 

 

 

Edit: Changed "have" to having in the above.

Edited February 12, 2016 by Zhongyongdaoist

[Karl]

I suppose we could have just stopped with Aristotelian physics. Would have saved a lot of money over the centuries, I guess.

Gallileo would have had to go back in the bag and we would have the classic queen song bohemian rhapsody.

Edited February 12, 2016 by Karl

[liminal_luke]

My view.. it may not be readily apparent but like art, science is important to our well being.  

 

This.  

[Brian]

Let's not be too harsh on Aristotelian physics, the formulation of gravity in General Relativity as a "least action" principle moving to minimize the energy by having masses move in the direction of the "deepest" gravity well has a rough equivalence to Aristotle's principle of "natural place". I wish I had more time to comment on this but I don't. If I do I will come back to this thread and make waves of considerable gravity.

 

 

 

 

 

Edit: Changed "have" to having in the above.

Yep, concept was fairly close -- as was the cause & effect concept -- but the mechanics were off. This is why we choose to stand on the shoulders of giants rather than rest on their laurels.

[liminal_luke]

Some people love to sing or draw as children only to lose the creative impulse somewhere in adolescence.  When I was a kid I couldn´t get enough of physics.  I remember one time sitting in the back of my grandmother´s car happily reading Scientific American while we spent hours driving around lost looking for Sea World.  Everybody was grumpy except for me.  My grandmother, in particular, found my lack of irritation very irritating.  

 

Yeah, I know this kind of research is expensive.  But if it helps even one nerdy boy or girl to distract themselves for a few hours from the swirl of family craziness  buzzing around them, I say it´s worth it.

 

Liminal

Edited February 12, 2016 by liminal_luke

[Zhongyongdaoist]

Some people love to sing or draw as children only to lose the creative impulse somewhere in adolescence.  When I was a kid I couldn´t get enough of physics.  I remember one time sitting in the back of my grandmother´s car happily reading Scientific American while we spent hours driving around lost looking for Sea World.  Everybody was grumpy except for me.  My grandmother, in particular, found my lack of irritation very irritating.  

 

Yeah, I know this kind of research is expensive.  But if it helps even one nerdy boy or girl to distract themselves for a few hours from the swirl of family craziness  buzzing around them, I say it´s worth it.

 

Liminal

 

Reminds me of me.

[Apech]

When gravity waves ... should we all wave back?  Or just be cool and say 'heavy man!'

[Marblehead]

Pay it no mind.  After all, gravity sucks.

[thelerner]

Pay it no mind.  After all, gravity sucks.

sometimes, and its always a downer.

 

 

& I've noticed the older I get

                 .  .   .      .     .     .     . the stronger it becomes.

Edited February 12, 2016 by thelerner

[doc benway]

I am very happy to see money, time, and effort being invested in physics research.

To me it is not at all a waste.

There are so very many benefits, some tangible, some less so...

There is little that I find more exciting and exotic than breakthroughs in physics, especially when it challenges existing ideas and leads us in new, unexpected directions.

It's equally compelling to see the consistency of views emerge as cutting edge physics and ancient spiritual traditions converge.

Like liminal_luke, I was a bit of a science addict as a kid - physics and anatomy mostly.

I'll never forget how excited I was to read an article in Scientific American about Bell's Theorem and Asimov's book, The Human Brain.

[Silent Answers]

I just can't buy into it. It seems like another relativity revival effort, and there's been a lot of pushing the theory recently as it continually fails in light of new discoveries. Things like dark matter & dark energy have been invented to help this flawed idea that gravity is the only force of the cosmos. Black holes that were originally taught to be voids that not even light could escape, now have excretion rings and shoot out impossible amounts of energy (impossible for gravity) in the form of quasars. Even the expanding universe is based on the flawed understanding of red shift.

 

Scientists have found some kind of miniscule vibration in space, this I don't doubt. Does this bring us any closer to greater understanding? Probably not, yet it's being hyped up as a massive step forward. I imagine there was a lot of pressure to prove this was money well spent.

[MooNiNite]

What the thinker thinks, the prover proves.

 

They wanted/needed to prove gravitational waves exist, so they created a setting in which they would expect gravitational waves to exist in.

 

According to their thinking: When the laser beam had discrepancies it MUST be gravitational waves, as nothing else we are AWARE OF could possibly do that.

 

This isn't science, this is propaganda.

 

A million different things that we have no idea could exist or not could cause lasers to hit at different speeds.  

 

Lets not just say only our belief system could cause a variation in measurement. 

 

Correlation does not imply causation.

[silent thunder]

Ha...  some of these contrarian responses really take me back to my church days.  "Too many questions are unhealthy young man"  and "that was a very deep question... you know...  deep people drown",  I heard something along those lines often when I would begin talking and questioning with any depth in my Confirmation and Sunday school classes, usually by those unwilling, incapable, or uninterested in exploring or understanding a concept in any greater depth than what was already readily 'accepted status quo'.  Rubbish!  That is sheep thinking and living death in my experience.  Leaving folks nothing more than biological robots acting out their social and familial conditioning in familiar surroundings to their great detriment. 

 

While we are limited to using the senses of our natural instrument to explore and interact with the ten thousand things and then in addition using those instruments we fashion (which will reflect our natural senses as they are products of our process and also carry along the inherent flaws there of... ), I don't see the merit in saying this process of exploration and discovery is worthless... seriously?  If we adopted this line of thinking as a species, we'd still be burning folks at the stake for claiming the heliocentric model.

 

Even if we don't see the ramifications of our discoveries now, it will pay benefit in cumulative effect, much like spiritual development.  Often, as I have engaged in inner work, I feel a definite sense of 'moving backwards' and it seems at the time as if I am not making progress, however I have found in time that progress in some matters is analogous to firing an arrow at a target, in order to fire the arrow, I must first draw it backward, or in order to make a good leap across a gap, I have to take a few steps back to get a running start... 

 

Even if these findings now are completely flawed and incorrect and will be proven so sometime in the future; there is as much merit in discovery of flaws as well as 'truths', since the exposure of a flaw, more readily brings to light, the deeper. underlying truth which the surface illusion was masking.

 

The fear mongering and the shaming of explorers is pathetic to me, not to mention pointless.  If one thing has been proven over and over through history, it is that the shamers and bullies will never stop the explorers and discoverers.  That impulse runs deeper than and laughs in the face of fear.

[doc benway]

Well said, silent thunder.

[MooNiNite]

Because they worked hard and made a discovery, we would be rude not to accept their larger belief system as absolute fact.

 

If fact, we would be bullies if we disagreed. 

 

It is not enough to just acknowledge the discovery for what it is, we must accept the larger belief system that gravity waves are absolute fact.

 

After all that hard work and money spent, they deserve to have finally absolutely proved the existence of Gravity Waves.

[thelerner]

What the thinker thinks, the prover proves.

They wanted/needed to prove gravitational waves exist, so they created a setting in which they would expect gravitational waves to exist in.

According to their thinking: When the laser beam had discrepancies it MUST be gravitational waves, as nothing else we are AWARE OF could possibly do that.

This isn't science, this is propaganda.

A million different things that we have no idea could exist or not could cause lasers to hit at different speeds. 

Lets not just say only our belief system could cause a variation in measurement. 

 

Correlation does not imply causation.

Building measurement devices to prove theories is what science does.  It's pretty close to the heart of the scientific method.  Nothing new here, except its being done in a very complex field.  Like particular accelerators its exotic, dealing with the tiniest of things but its not voodoo.  Go back 300 450ish years and science was using a microscope to do cutting edge work.  We, science is simply getting better and smarter.

 

This kind of science is complicated enough that you need to dig much deeper then headlines and articles to fully understand.   While a PHD in physics would help, one might need to digest an indepth book or two on subject to understand the how's and why's of what was done. 

 

I tend to believe it, because that's the word coming out of top people in the field.  The ones with PHD's and extensive study, not only the ones who designed it, but others who've studied the set up and the data.   To dismiss it out of hand, might be indicative of an anti-science mind set.  Because it's  complicated doesn't mean its a hoax. 

 

On the other hand good science is over thrown and re-interpreted.  I wouldn't be surprised if other interpretations come up.  I haven't read why they pin this finding on a particular double black hole collision.  The distance and differing measurements are questionable, ie 780 to 1.something billion light years away.  Still something (probably) caused a ripple in space time and cutting edge engineering based on physics was able to track it.  Which is pretty cool.

Edited February 14, 2016 by thelerner

[MooNiNite]

Building measurement devices to prove theories is what science does.  It's pretty close to the heart of the scientific method.  Nothing new here, except its being done in a very complex field.  Like particular accelerators its exotic, dealing with the tiniest of things but its not voodoo.  Go back 300 450ish years and science was using a microscope to do cutting edge work.  We, science is simply getting better and smarter.

 

This kind of science is complicated enough that you need to dig much deeper then headlines and articles to fully understand.   While a PHD in physics would help, one might need to digest an indepth book or two on subject to understand the how's and why's of what was done. 

 

I tend to believe it, because that's the word coming out of top people in the field.  The ones with PHD's and extensive study, not only the ones who designed it, but others who've studied the set up and the data.   To dismiss it out of hand, might be indicative of an anti-science mind set.  Because it's  complicated doesn't mean its a hoax. 

 

On the other hand good science is over thrown and re-interpreted.  I wouldn't be surprised if other interpretations come up.  I haven't read why they pin this finding on a particular double black hole collision.  The distance and differing measurements are questionable, ie 780 to 1.something billion light years away.  Still something (probably) caused a ripple in space time and cutting edge engineering based on physics was able to track it.  Which is pretty cool.

 

Look at it for exactly what it is.

 

They upgraded their systems capacity to measure and noticed dependencies in times it takes a laser to travel from one point to another. What is the real accomplishment is a new level of sensitivity for their machine. 

 

The laser changes in the amount of time it takes to go from one point to another. That is what was proved. 

 

Why not just look at it for what it is? Why say that it is undeniable proof for something else? 

 

DO you WANT to believe that you know something as an undeniable fact? Is it a god complex?

 

Is the astounding nature of our reality to much for you?

[doc benway]

Because they worked hard and made a discovery, we would be rude not to accept their larger belief system as absolute fact.

 

If fact, we would be bullies if we disagreed. 

 

It is not enough to just acknowledge the discovery for what it is, we must accept the larger belief system that gravity waves are absolute fact.

 

After all that hard work and money spent, they deserve to have finally absolutely proved the existence of Gravity Waves.

 

No need to get so incensed and sarcastic. No one is asking you, or any of us, to accept anything as fact or believe anything.

Scientists speak in theories and evidence to support those theories. As new evidence comes to light, theories are adjusted to account for it. Eventually, a big picture may arise which accommodates all of the evidence. 

I do think people who work hard should be acknowledged for their work, but that doesn't mean we need to interpret it in any particular way. Time will tell what it really means and that will change as we continue to progress.

 

 

Look at it for exactly what it is.

 

They upgraded their systems capacity to measure and noticed dependencies in times it takes a laser to travel from one point to another. What is the real accomplishment is a new level of sensitivity for their machine. 

 

The laser changes in the amount of time it takes to go from one point to another. That is what was proved. 

 

Why not just look at it for what it is? Why say that it is undeniable proof for something else? 

 

DO you WANT to believe that you know something as an undeniable fact? Is it a god complex?

 

Is the astounding nature of our reality to much for you?

 

I think the significance has to do with the axioms upon which relativistic theory is built and the fixed speed of light but I really haven't looked at it closely yet.

This finding was predicted long before we had the capability to measure the effect.

It may turn out to support the postulate of gravitational waves and, then again, more study may prove it to be just a glitch.

Either way, it's good to see smart people continuing to try and understand things through the scientific method, a very powerful tool for sure. 

Just like it's good to see sensitive people continuing to try and understand themselves through the spiritual methods, also very powerful.

In my world, there is room for both.

[MooNiNite]

MAJOR Discovery: Scientists announce finding Gravitational Waves confirming Einstein's theory

Edited February 14, 2016 by MooNiNite

[Marblehead]

Well, we all need a little drama in our life, don't we?

 

I mean, watching those Flat Earth videos was total drama. 

 

How much time, effort and resources were put into doing them?

[thelerner]

If we went back in time 60 years they had similar headlines when one of Einsteins theories proved that gravity could work like lens bending light, ie you see a star that should be blocked because gravity bent the light.  That was pretty easy to prove, you just needed a good telescope.  Still the math is not that easy, ie.. One of the pages is reproduced in the following image:

 

 

[Published as part of the Collected Papers of Albert Einstein, Vol. 3, p. 585;
Reprinted by permission of Princeton University Press.]

 

Moonnite you've published youtubes that say everything we know about space and physics is a lie, ie hundreds of satellites lies, distance of moon sun every object in space, lies.   Since you operate on the foundation that a dozen scientific areas from basic geography, to engineering to physics to astronomy is a vast 1,000 year conspiracy.  You use the fruits of these tech understandings every day but don't believe the science behind them.

 

I wish you could take a walk around the Adler Planetarium in Chicago.  Part of it focus on the history of ideas, how they built up.   It was made for people like you.   It clearly shows why theories were dropped for better ones.  The people, there tools, there math and ideas clearly shown out. 

 

For example the question why planets appear to move backwards in there orbits, retrograde.  That was a problems for the best minds of the time.  There is a model of the solar system and you can see why it happens as well as see earlier theories and why they were problematic, ie stars, moon and sun on varied invisible domes doesn't work.  Once we got telescopes we could see more of the complexity of the world and needed to explain what we could now see.

 

For example, the solar system, why we know it is the way it is.  Why we know the planets, like ours are round, even how much they weigh.  You can see how ancients discovered it.  You can see the diagrams and math Greeks used to discover how far away the moon and sun were.  How they deduced 1,000+ the size of the planet (underestimated it a little). 

 

Why modern satellites and our intersolar exploration vehicles work using math that plugs in the (realitvely simple) equation for gravity and low and behold the theory works in real life.  Thus they use gravity slings to get increase speed and swoop around planets.  These aren't different the equations used in the 19th century to calculate flights of artillery. 

 

The ideas and tools are gradual, with breakthroughs by very smart people who asked the right question.  And they're not taken on faith.  They needed mathematical models behind them.  They needed real world confirmation.   Newer and better measurements were continually needed as we explored world from other galaxies to electron microscopes and beyond.

 

Maybe you have a planetarium or similar museum near where you live.  Though the Adler in Chicago in excellent because it walks through history so nicely.  You'll never see a model of the the flat earth's solar system that works, ie you won't see one that shows Jupiter with its 63 moons, a dozen of which Galileo saw orbiting the planet in 1610.  Here's a quote from the page where I got that-"By the time of Galileo's birth on February 15, 1564, it was well known that Earth is shaped like a sphere. The idea had been clearly articulated by Aristotle nearly two thousand years before in Ancient Greece. Eratosthenes, a librarian in Alexandria, had measured the diameter of the Earth fairly accurately around 240 BC, and Magellan's voyage around the world in 1543 AD established beyond a doubt that people live all around the spherical Earth."

 

If you went to the Adler you could see replicas of Galileo's work, his predecessor's and future scientists, why they made there theories, how they were proved, on and on through the centuries.

 

So I invite you.  If you're ever in Chicago, to a free trip to the Adler (I'm a member).  Its a beautiful building in a fantastic location right on Lake Michigan.  They have several amazing theaters with various shows that explain various aspects of the universe.  My dad loves it (for sleeping).   You can talk to real scientists and astronomers, look at moon rocks (boring) and meteorites.      They have a reasonable restaurant with the best lake view in the city.  Lunch is on me.  Give me a call if you're ever in the neighborhood.   

 

For now here's a link:http://www.adlerplanetarium.org/whats-here/

and online explanations from them:  http://www.nasawavelength.org/ they have levels. Well worth exploring.  These ideas didn't develop out of the blue, they were built up, tested and advanced as mankind got more advanced.   Our universe is amazing, and science is unlocking its rule books.  Modern cutting edge discoveries are fascinating and perhaps best understood by going through the past to see how they evolved. 

 

For example El Nino is affecting us all, causing blizzards, drought.. changing weather patterns.. It is real, not a hoax.   Science is studying it- http://mynasadata.larc.nasa.gov/lesson-plans/?page_id=474?&passid=68 Satellites using different lenses that pick up varying wavelengths for temperature and densities are gathering evidence.  Scientists create complex mathematical models; seeing if predictions pan out.  Some will, some won't, its about learning. 

 

This is a good video on how astronomy developed from Aristotle to Newton, Why we grew beyond Aristotles view:

Watch til at least the Gaileo section and ofcourse Newtons.

 

Notice how the astronomy and physics, knowing the shape of solar system and the mathematics behind gravity allow us to know when and Why the tides are, how the moon and sun's gravity pulls our oceans.   The math in the model explains the reality on Earth.  Can Flat Earth theory do that?  Explain the tides?  Explain why the 63 moons of Jupiter orbit it just so..  Would meteor showers and comets be a source of superstitious dread?  

Edited February 15, 2016 by thelerner

[doc benway]

MooNiNite said:

MAJOR Discovery: Scientists announce finding Gravitational Waves confirming Einstein's theory

 

 

It may be just that, and then again it may not be.

There are all kinds of dogmatic headlines and statements in the newspaper.

In general, I think those statements are more a reflection of media and political interests and efforts to generate profit and power by those interests.

In my experience the folks actually doing the work tend to be enthusiastic and passionate while maintaining a healthy caution about the significance and longetivity of their findings.

Scientists generally understand the tenuous and fragile nature of "discoveries" and their significance, much more so than lay folks and the opportunists (media, administrators, politicians, etc...).

 

PS - I fully agree with your comment about correlation not necessarily implying causation - very important, although I'm not sure it applies in this specific case

Edited February 15, 2016 by steve