Physicist: A few days ago we managed to detect gravity waves for the first time. Gravity waves were predicted a century ago by Einstein as a consequence of his general theory of relativity. This success isn’t too surprising from a theoretical stand point; if
your theories are already batting a thousand, then when they bowl yet another field
goal for a check mate no one is shocked.
What is amazing is not that gravity waves exist, but that we’ve managed to detect
them. The effect is so unimaginably small that it can be overwhelmed by someone
stubbing their toe a mile away or filing their taxes wrong. Gravity is literally
the geometry of spacetime: very particular, tiny increases and decreases in
distances and durations. There’s a fairly standard technique for doing this: light
is bounced back and forth along two separate paths between mirrors (in this case the
length of those two paths are each 4km) dozens of times. The light from these two
paths is then brought together and allowed to interfere. If the difference in the
length of the two paths changes by half a wave length, then instead of destructive
interference we see constructive interference. The actual path difference is
substantially less than half a wave length, but it’s still detectable.
A gravity wave detector is a device that very, very carefully measures the difference between the lengths of two long paths. (Left) The tiny difference is detected by looking at the interference between lasers that travel along each path. (Right) What the detector in Livingston, LA looks like from above.
When a gravity wave ripples through the Earth, the lengths of the two paths change
by about one part in 1021 which is a tiny fraction of the width of a proton over 4 km. Keep in mind that the light that’s doing the measuring is bouncing off of mirrors that are made of atoms (each of which is much bigger than a proton) and that those atoms are constantly jiggling, because that’s what any level of heat does to matter. This level of precision is the most impressive part of this whole accomplishment. Your heart beat is currently throwing around the building you’re in by a lot more than a proton’s width. And yet, despite the fact that the literally everything in the world is a source of experiment-ruining noise, LIGO is able to filter all of it out and then go on to detect the ridiculously faint signal of a couple of black holes a fair fraction of the universe away and even sort out details of the event.
The signal that we’re hearing about now was actually detected in September. The cause appears to be the merging of two black holes about 1.3 billion lightyears away (which puts the source well outside of our backyard). These black holes started with masses of around 36 and 29 times the mass of the Sun and after combining left a black hole with a combined mass of about 62 Sun-masses. Astute second graders will observe that 36+29>62. This is because gravity waves carry energy. In this case the final event turned about 3 Sun’s worth of energy into ripples in spacetime that are “loud” enough to literally (albeit very, very slightly) rattle everything in the universe. So, if we ever contact aliens from the other side of the universe and they also have nerds, then we’ll have something to talk about. By the way, this signal (unlike so many in physics) has a frequency well within the range of human hearing. Properly cleaned up, it sounds like this.
(Top) The signal as detected at the two observatories. The noise is bad enough that without at least two observatories it would be much more difficult to see it.
(Middle) The signal as predicted by our understanding of general relativity. (Bottom) The remaining noise after the signal has been subtracted. Notice that it is now fairly constant.
(Picture on the bottom) This is a plot of the strength of the signal using color vs. frequency on the vertical axis and time on the horizontal axis.
This is the first direct measurement of gravity waves, but it isn’t the first evidence we’ve seen. If you have two really heavy masses in orbit around each other, you’ll find that they’ll slowly spiral together. This is strange because it implies that the masses are losing energy. But to what? We first measured this effect with pulsars, which are a kind of neutron star (the next densest things after black holes). Pulsars are so named because they produce radio pulses that are extremely regular. You can think of them as giant space clocks. They’re precise enough that they allow us to figure out exactly how they’re moving using doppler shifts, and they’ve shown that closely orbiting pairs lose energy in exactly the way we’d expect based on our theoretical understanding of gravity waves.
So what can we use this for? So far we’ve been able to “hear” black holes merging (several more times since September). We’re not only detecting the spiraling in, but also the process of the black holes coalescing. Once they come in contact they briefly form an unshelled-peanut-shaped black hole before assuming a spherical shape. This process is called the “ring down” and it also creates audible gravity waves that give us information about the behavior of black holes. But beyond heavy things in tight orbits and ringing black holes, what will we hear? Short answer: who knows. If you go out in the woods you’ll hear trees falling over when no one is around and lots of bears shitting, but there’s no telling what else you’ll hear. The only way to find out is to go out and listen. As our gravity wave detectors get better and more plentiful we’ll be able to hear fainter and fainter signals. We can expect to hear lots of black holes merging; not because it’s common, but because it’s loud and the universe is big. Soon we’ll start hearing things we don’t expect and that’s when the science happens. It’s nice to have our theories regarding gravity waves proven right, but being right isn’t the point of science. As long as you’re right, you’re not learning. It’s all the things we don’t expect that will be the most exciting.
Gravity wave astronomy is only the third way we have of observing the distant universe: light, neutrinos, and now gravity waves. We didn’t know what we’d find with the first two and it’s fair to say we don’t know what we’ll learn now. Exciting times.
You can read the paper that announced the achievement here. And check out the author list: there was more collaboration on this than a Wu Tang album.
Update (6/20/2016): And again!
If you were close enough to the two orbiting black holes that were source of these gravity waves, would it be possible to see this effect of spacetime rippling with the naked eye? If so, how close to the black holes would you have to be to see the effect?
More a window opened for the researches of the cosmos,neutrinos and now the gravitational waves already thinker by Einstein in theirs equations for gate.demonstrate that these gravitational waves carry energy and with surely particles,as the graviton so,that might to explain the quantum field theory,beyond the standard model.these echoes capped of the colliding black holes,demonstrating the existence of the black holes to the energy level observed by the LIGO,in the part of frequency of the proton.the ripples in the spacetime altere the structure of the curvatures of spacetime.these distortion if propagate in the space with the speed of light,as well as the gravity.we are awaiting news discovered in the in the field of the particle physics as the tentative of meet the graviton stand explain the essence of the gravity,extra dimensions,dark matter,dark energy…
Assuming the common acceptance of “spacetime” is correct.
I believe there are more modern and better theories that use field, field energy and similar concepts that do not necessarily show that “distance” can be literally altered.
More likely, it is an energy thing such as K.E. of the wave that gets translated down the perpendicular LIGO apparatus that simulates Length shortening.
George
Glen Lancaster can find some discussion related issue to his question (above) about how close you might need to be to actually see the ripples here: http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=2651
I believe the answer can be summarised as “extremely close”, very likely “too close for comfort”!
Albert Einstein is once again and finally proven totally correct (except he didn’t think this day would come gravity waves being so small) and any newer theories must include ways to account for all the Einsteinian effects. Congratulations everyone and especially Albert Einstein. We’ll miss you.
I like the joke a physics major friend of mine made:
“Gee, I hear that the Michaelson-Morley experiment finally got a positive result.”
(In that vein, it would be amusing for someone to publish a short paper noting that the LIGO data refutes the existence of the aether to some umpty-silly number of decimal places/)
I was wondering… this recent ‘discovery’ or confirmation made by LIGO seems to suggest that we detected the gravitational waves made by two black holes colliding 1.3 Billion years ago. After exhaustive online research I still have questions.
I will try to be brief and specific.
1. Is my assertion above that we detected the waves from this particular event? Meaning the event of two black holes colliding 1.3 Billion years ago?
2. If this is true – how long do those waves stick around? For example – if I throw a rock into the middle of a perfectly round pond measuring exactly 50 meters in diameter, and I’m standing on a conveniently placed rock at exactly 25 meters from the center, then I would expect the waves to meet me and eventually pass me, and then, after a period of time the pond would be (relatively) still again – at least where I’m standing – meaning no waves to detect. Is this the case with us standing on our rock (Earth) in the pond of space? So are they passing by us like me standing on that rock in the pond and eventually there would be no detectable waves from this event?
3. If they are passing by – will they pass by (meaning will they be detectable by us) for millions of years? hundreds of years? will they be gone tomorrow? will my grandchildren live in a world where we can’t detect these any more or are there just so many out there all the time it’s just up to us to get better at detecting them?
I thank you in advance for your response.
Would it be possible for us to see the effects of gravitational waves by looking at the sun, either time-wise or distance-wise? What would happen if two of the largest supermassive black holes collided? What will happen if and when our supermassive black hole collides with the one in Andromeda?
if we were in the same star sytem as the two black holes would we be affected by them as we would be so much closer ??????
I wonder how the age of the event was derived. Was it from the apparent vs absolute magnitude of the event as described by the supercomputer model for the mass conversioin? or was it from a redshift of the gravity waves as seen in the “chirp”, again based on a change in frequency distribution from the modeled event?
As if we needed something else for scientists to crow about. I’ve read that the gravity wave detector in Texas can be triggered by semi trucks traveling on a nearby highway. So how can we be certain that these waves were from a far-distant (millions of lightyears away) black hole? All that seems just too speculative for me. I think, like so many times, the scientists find what they are looking for without the necessary means of confirming it. They have to justify spending all those federal funds somehow. I’m not against the idea that gravity waves exist, just that what was recorded in the Texas facility was actually what they say it was. “If you’re eager to prove your theory, then here’s the proof.” NOT so convincing an argument in my opinion.
In addition to my above comment, I would like to ask the following:
Are gravity waves invisible? What are they transmitted by in deep space where there is little matter density?
Do gravity waves from the identified source affect gravity on a planet such as Earth and if so, how?
Can the scientists at the Texas facility prove that the effects that they measured were actually gravity waves rather than some other vibration and if so how?
Why are there not continual measurements of gravity waves being recorded considering how many “black holes” exist in the universe (allegedly)?
Does Earth generate gravity waves? Do all objects produce gravity waves?
Do smaller objects produce gravity waves in proportion to their size and are they continually generated?
Why and how does a massive object generate gravity waves? Is it by the mass of the object or its density or its size.
Do gravity waves interfere with each other when there is a multiplicity of objects together or are they synchronized to vibrate in unison, reinforcing each other ?
Why do scientists believe that gravity waves actually exist? Because Einstein said so (if he did.)?
Did Einstein elaborate on his proposition that gravity waves exist or just make a statement that he believed that they existed?
How do gravity waves manifest themselves in objects that attract each other based on their mass?
What does it mean if gravity waves do exist and how is it relevant to proportional attraction between objects based on their mass.
Does mass amplify the influence of gravity waves if an object is massive or does a more massive object produce more waves or stronger waves?
Why does massive objects have more “pull” than less massive ones ?
Does mass alone affect the strength of gravity waves?
Do gravity waves follow the inverse relationship to distance between objects?
Could we measure gravity waves of objects at close range without the necessity of black holes colliding millions of lightyears away? Why not?
@Ron Williams
It is difficult, but the every known source of noise was carefully taken into account and neutralized. To get around the effects of trucks, the apparatus needs to be “seismically isolated“. It’s definitely not easy, but it has been done.
More than that, we can tell the difference between things as distinct as “truck signals” and “black hole signals”. Best of all, when we detect an event, we detect it three times, at three different detectors.
“Are gravity waves invisible?”
Yup!
“What are they transmitted by in deep space where there is little matter density?”
Gravity waves are a very, very tiny fluctuation in the geometry of spacetime. They are literally a repeating change in the distance between the mirrors.
“Do gravity waves from the identified source affect gravity on a planet such as Earth and if so, how?”
In the sense that a speck of dust affects a mountain. Nothing to worry about.
“Can the scientists at the Texas facility prove that the effects that they measured were actually gravity waves rather than some other vibration and if so how?”
As much as anything can be proven in physics: yes. The signals we detect line up with exactly what we were expecting, and we detect that at several locations at the same time. Basically, we can tell the difference the same way a group of people can tell the difference between the sound of a garbage disposal and bird song.
“Why are there not continual measurements of gravity waves being recorded considering how many “black holes” exist in the universe (allegedly)?”
The only gravity waves we can detect now come from the in-spiral of two great masses, which pairs of black holes will only do once. There just aren’t enough black holes in the observable universe.
“Does Earth generate gravity waves? Do all objects produce gravity waves?”
The movement of the Earth around the Sun does create gravity waves, but way, way below our detection threshold.
“Do smaller objects produce gravity waves in proportion to their size and are they continually generated?”
Basically! An object that’s just sitting around does not. It also help our ability to detect a wave if that object repeats what it’s doing really fast (tuning forks make a sound more distinct than wind through the trees).
“Why and how does a massive object generate gravity waves?”
The bigger and faster the object, the louder the gravity waves. Right now we need things with the mass of stars to be orbiting many times a second before we can “hear” them.
“Is it by the mass of the object or its density or its size.”
Mass.
“Do gravity waves interfere with each other when there is a multiplicity of objects together or are they synchronized to vibrate in unison, reinforcing each other ?”
They should interfere, but that’s not something we’ve had the opportunity to worry about.
“Why do scientists believe that gravity waves actually exist? Because Einstein said so (if he did.)?”
We’ve got a theory of gravity, General Relativity, that is remarkably simple, has successfully and very accurately explained a wide variety of previously mysterious phenomena, and has stood up to a century of extreme scrutiny. Gravity waves are one of the last predictions of GR that hadn’t been confirmed.
“Did Einstein elaborate on his proposition that gravity waves exist or just make a statement that he believed that they existed?”
Poincaré was the first person to make an argument for the existence of gravitational waves. What Einstein did was write down a description of the nature of spacetime, that was later shown to support waves, which includes a lot of elaboration. It’s not just some off-the-top-of-the-head idea, gravity waves were well established and well understood long before LIGO was built.
“How do gravity waves manifest themselves in objects that attract each other based on their mass?”
They don’t.
“What does it mean if gravity waves do exist and how is it relevant to proportional attraction between objects based on their mass.”
Gravity waves are not directly involved with the attraction of objects.
“Does mass amplify the influence of gravity waves if an object is massive or does a more massive object produce more waves or stronger waves?”
If a pair of black holes has more the mass of another pair, they will produce bigger waves as they spin into each other.
“Why does massive objects have more “pull” than less massive ones ?”
Each individual piece of mass pulls on every other piece of mass. More mass, more pull.
“Does mass alone affect the strength of gravity waves?”
The exact shape of the spiraling orbits of colliding black holes, their orientation with respect to the Earth, and their distance to us are all important.
“Do gravity waves follow the inverse relationship to distance between objects?”
They decrease over distance by 1/r.
“Could we measure gravity waves of objects at close range without the necessity of black holes colliding millions of lightyears away? Why not?”
Probably! We can detect colliding black holes because they’re “loud”. As our techniques get better, we’ll start detecting a wider variety of things.
Are these gravity waves in the QM sense that show evidence of a graviton? Or are these more of a compression wave like throwing a rock in a pond, Only the medium is space time rather than water?
@Jeff
It’s more like a regular wave. This is unlikely to be a useful way of detecting gravitons.
This will challenge.
Gravity = Acceleration?
Does the Earth PULL the APPLE to the ground or
Does the Sky PUSH the APPLE to the ground?
Which is correct: GRAVITY is pulling matter together or ANTI GRAVITY, another name for DARK ENERGY, is pushing it together?
Which is correct: GRAVITY, is inside MATTER somewhere, or ANTI GRAVITY is outside everywhere in empty SPACE?
DARK ENERGY in physics is defined as a repulsive force that counteracts gravity and causes the universe to expand everywhere at an accelerating rate. My suggestion is that DARK ENERGY is ANTI GRAVITY.
Most likely it is ZERO POINT ENERGY, The COSMOLOGICAL CONSTANT and VIRTUAL PARTICLES too.
My next suggestion is that THERE IS NO GRAVITY!
My idea is similar to a universe wide CASIMIR EFFECT on all matter. Here, instead of two metal plates being pushed together, there are “plates” of matter and the expanding space around them, pushing them together.
Dr Einstein said his breakthrough came when he imagined an analogy of an elevator in space. As acceleration increases, gravity increases. The person in the elevator can’t tell if he is in an elevator traveling in space or one on Earth.
BUT WHAT IF WE ARE BOTH RIGHT.
Look at the drawing.
There are two round elevators.
The elevator on the left IS NOT accelerating.
No acceleration = No gravity
The force of empty space or anti gravity, pushes on all sides equally.
The elevator on the right IS accelerating.
Acceleration = Gravity.
The force of empty space or anti gravity, pushes on all sides, but mostly from the front due to acceleration! The acceleration scrunches up the forces in front. They overlap each other from the elevator accelerating into them. These cumulative, empty space, forces, push back more and more as the elevator accelerates in that forward direction.
This causes gravity. Acceleration = Gravity!
More exactly the forces of ANTI GRAVITY cause matter to experience what we call gravity.
So: acceleration of an object in space causes space to push back. This is what we have been calling gravity but is anti gravity.
Some will say:
But it’s so obvious, the Sun goes around the Earth, and the apple falls to the ground.
Yes they seem obvious. But both are wrong!
My previous posts, part of a single paper covering all these ideas, suggested that before the Big Bang, there was a singularity of photons, an eternal dimensionless point of energy.
Then the force that expanded out of the Big Bang and started the universe, and time space, was DARK ENERGY; a subset of the singularity of photons.
So Gravity from stars and planets was never PULLING matter together. The opposite was true: Anti Gravity or DARK ENERGY from empty space was expanding and PUSHING matter together from all sides!
THERE IS NO GRAVITY pulling anything together. THERE IS ONLY ANTI GRAVITY or DARK ENERGY expanding and pushing matter on all sides. This can explain acceleration in elevators, rocket propulsion; the rubber sheet analogy, why no light escapes black holes, space expansion, curvature of space, and why there is so little gravity in the quantum world.
…
Three Follow Ups.
1. Remember the rubber sheet analogy? The rubber sheet is space pushing on all sides. That’s the force I’m talking about that causes what we call gravity.
Q. The implication is clear (or at least, it was clear to Einstein): Gravity causes acceleration, and acceleration causes gravity. They are absolutely identical
2. Galileo’s experiment, later recreated on the moon shows a hammer and feather dropping and hitting the ground at the same time. This supports space pushing them , not the attraction of their weight.
3. Doppler Effect: Waves emitted by a source traveling towards an observer get compressed.
4. The greatest force in the universe is dark energy, the energy of empty space. Dark energy is 70% of all energy. It has such force that its expanding the universe everywhere all the time, and is now speeding up.
This will challenge.
Gravity = Acceleration?
Does the Earth PULL the APPLE to the ground or
Does the Sky PUSH the APPLE to the ground?
Which is correct: GRAVITY is pulling matter together or ANTI GRAVITY, another name for DARK ENERGY, is pushing it together?
Which is correct: GRAVITY, is inside MATTER somewhere, or ANTI GRAVITY is outside everywhere in empty SPACE?
DARK ENERGY in physics is defined as a repulsive force that counteracts gravity and causes the universe to expand everywhere at an accelerating rate. My suggestion is that DARK ENERGY is ANTI GRAVITY.
Most likely it is ZERO POINT ENERGY, The COSMOLOGICAL CONSTANT and VIRTUAL PARTICLES too.
My next suggestion is that THERE IS NO GRAVITY!
My idea is similar to a universe wide CASIMIR EFFECT on all matter. Here, instead of two metal plates being pushed together, there are “plates” of matter and the expanding space around them, pushing them together.
Professor Einstein said his breakthrough came when he imagined an analogy of an elevator in space. As acceleration increases, gravity increases. The person in the elevator can’t tell if he is in an elevator traveling in space or one on Earth.
BUT WHAT IF WE ARE BOTH RIGHT.
Look at the drawing.
There are two round elevators.
The elevator on the left IS NOT accelerating.
No acceleration = No gravity
The force of empty space or anti gravity, pushes on all sides equally.
The elevator on the right IS accelerating.
Acceleration = Gravity.
The force of empty space or anti gravity, pushes on all sides, but mostly from the front due to acceleration! The acceleration scrunches up the forces in front. They overlap each other from the elevator accelerating into them. These cumulative, empty space, forces, push back more and more as the elevator accelerates in that forward direction.
This causes gravity. Acceleration = Gravity!
More exactly the forces of ANTI GRAVITY cause matter to experience what we call gravity.
So: acceleration of an object in space causes space to push back. This is what we have been calling gravity but is anti gravity.
Some will say:
But it’s so obvious, the Sun goes around the Earth, and the apple falls to the ground.
Yes they seem obvious. But both are wrong!
My previous posts, part of a single paper covering all these ideas, suggested that before the Big Bang, there was a singularity of photons, an eternal dimensionless point of energy.
Then the force that expanded out of the Big Bang and started the universe, and time space, was DARK ENERGY; a subset of the singularity of photons.
So Gravity from stars and planets was never PULLING matter together. The opposite was true: Anti Gravity or DARK ENERGY from empty space was expanding and PUSHING matter together from all sides!
THERE IS NO GRAVITY pulling anything together. THERE IS ONLY ANTI GRAVITY or DARK ENERGY expanding and pushing matter on all sides. This can explain acceleration in elevators, rocket propulsion; the rubber sheet analogy, why no light escapes black holes, space expansion, curvature of space, and why there is so little gravity in the quantum world.
…
Follow Ups.
1. Remember the rubber sheet analogy? The rubber sheet is space pushing on all sides. That’s the force I’m talking about that causes what we call gravity.
Q. The implication is clear (or at least, it was clear to Einstein): Gravity causes acceleration, and acceleration causes gravity. They are absolutely identical
2. Galileo’s experiment, later recreated on the moon shows a hammer and feather dropping and hitting the ground at the same time. This supports space pushing them , not the attraction of their weight.
3. Doppler Effect: Waves emitted by a source traveling towards an observer get compressed.
4. The greatest force in the universe is dark energy, the energy of empty space. Dark energy is 70% of all energy. It has such force that its expanding the universe everywhere all the time, and is now speeding up.
5. Dark matter suggests that we need a different theory of gravity. Dark energy or anti gravity would explain both as the force from empty space pushing matter forward, and the force in front of matter resisting its acceleration and giving it mass.
6. The Alan Guth idea of Inflation suggests that the expansion of the universe was driven by an anti gravity force.
7. There are many physic discoveries that support anti gravity as a force of expansion. These may include, the Big Bang, inflation, vacuum energy, dark energy, etc.