[OT] Black Holes Merge--Universe "wobbles"

[CmdrSam]

However, let us note that nobody has, as of this time, actually observed gravity waves

We're working on it. Preliminary results are expected in early 2003...

And all the theories I've heard of have gravitational waves propagating at the speed of light, I believe...

--Sam L-L

 

[Edena_of_Neith]

I realize this is far fetched and difficult to swallow (I certainly am having a hard time believing it) but they claim that in supercolliders we create microscopic black holes all the time.
These black holes, supposedly only last an instant.

If this is true, what are they trying to do? (other than waste taxpayer's money)

About Earth jiggling an inch or two in width and height as the distortions pass through it ...
Where can my D&D character get spell power equivalent to that?
After all, what would wiggle a planet, would sure shake up those orcs, no?

 

[Zappo]

I realize this is far fetched and difficult to swallow (I certainly am having a hard time believing it) but they claim that in supercolliders we create microscopic black holes all the time.

Yep.

These black holes, supposedly only last an instant.

Yep.

If this is true, what are they trying to do?

Waste taxpayer's...

(other than waste taxpayer's money)

Oh. I guess they'll sell them as gadgets if they get them to stay long enough. They would make nice gifts.

More seriously, it is only far fetched and hard to swallow because the media in the past decades have given black holes an aura of evil and menace that borders on the irrational. From a scientific POV, there's nothing wrong or strange about making mini black holes to better study physics. They aren't dangerous and they are formed naturally in cosmic rays all the time.

 

[Saeviomagy]

Supercolliders hardly waste taxpayers money.

Well, it depends. If you can't think beyond the material possessions you own, the roof over your head etc, then they're probably wasting your money. And you're wasting my oxygen.

Otherwise they're having a good crack at working out how the universe is actually fitted together, whether the atoms that we have on earth are really the only atoms present in the universe, whether there's anything smaller than an <insert really small particle here>, how much energy there is in <really small particle> , whether we can create antimatter, and what happens if we do, etc.

 

[Umbran]

We're working on it. Preliminary results are expected in early 2003...

Yes, I know about LIGO. I also know about large physics experiments. Maybe they'll be on time, and maybe they won't. These things are complicated enough that one tiny complication and be a major setback.

And while theory is good, it's not a replacement for evidence. That's why LIGO was built, after all - to gather empirical evidence...

 

[Wayside]

Re: Actually, it probably has already happened

Since it takes us 400 million years for the light from the event to get to us, we're seeing the events that actually happened 400 million years ago. While IANAQP (I Am Not A Quantum Physicist), to the best of my understanding gravity is an instantaneous (or perhaps better described as continuous) effect. So even if it took another 100 million years for the black holes to merge, the gravity wave shot out across space, passed through the Earth, and continued on about 300 million years ago.

Sorry folks, if we're getting a gravity wave we'll have to wait for another pair of black holes to collide.

Actually gravitons travel at the same speed as photons.. i.e. the speed of light. This is one of the problems Einstein started with, and eventually it ended in relativity. It was in Newtonian physics that gravity acted instantaneously. Later on there was also the problem of "if I travel at the speed of light and look over my shoulder, do I see light standing still?" The answer to that became special relativity.

 

[Wayside]

However, let us note that nobody has, as of this time, actually observed gravity waves, or how quickly gravitational effects propagate. There has been no event large enough for us to measure such effects within our solar system.

We guess that they propagate at c. We don't yet have empirical evidence.

Well, yes and no. Like a lot of the evidence of quantum mechanics and astrophysics, the evidence is perturbative. In the same way that we detect extra-solar planets by all sorts of fun indirect methods, we know that gravity travels at c. The math sort of demands it. There are more solid reasons but, damnit, I majored in English. I'm busy with phenomenology right now so I refuse to give into my impulse to look it up!

 

[Ulrick]

Don't forget the fact that it said also that we'll have to wait 100 million years for the collision of the black holes!

*In Tom Petty voice*

The waaaaitin' is the hardest part.

---

Does anybody else notice that these cosmic scenarios that might destroy the world always will happen millions of years from now?

 

[jgbrowning]

Supercolliders hardly waste taxpayers money.

Well, it depends. If you can't think beyond the material possessions you own, the roof over your head etc, then they're probably wasting your money. And you're wasting my oxygen.

Otherwise they're having a good crack at working out how the universe is actually fitted together, whether the atoms that we have on earth are really the only atoms present in the universe, whether there's anything smaller than an <insert really small particle here>, how much energy there is in <really small particle> , whether we can create antimatter, and what happens if we do, etc.

bah, figuring out how the universe is actually fitted together is easy....

*sound of one hand clapping*

now, figuring out how the hell crothian can post on average 35.80 times a day for months?... now that would require some serious science.

joe b.

 

[Zappo]

Does anybody else notice that these cosmic scenarios that might destroy the world always will happen millions of years from now?

If they said it was going to happen in 15 hours, do you really think that I would be wasting time on this messageboard?