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Breakthrough: Scientists detect Einstein's gravity ripples

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Randomizer123454444

Member
SlimySnake said:
yeah i dont know what any of this means. tell me how this will help us understand the universe.
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For the longest time, observing light/similar has been pretty much our only way to observe the universe. Gravity waves will allow a whole another way of examining and understanding the universe around us.

It's still very hard for us to detect them, but now we know they ARE there.
 
K

Kaneda Shotaro

Member
So...have they figured out where gravity comes from? I still don't really know what gravity is and I'm guessing nobody really does. How is gravity "produced"?

I mean can we quantify gravity or maybe one day produce it ourselves?
 
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nOoblet16

Member
What's amazing is that we are capable of detecting change down to one sextillionth part (That's 1/ 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.)
 
G

georly

Member
I get that this is a fantastic breakthrough and now means we have the capacity to measure something we couldn't before - but... what does this mean for science applications? What can they do NOW that they did this that was not possible before? Is this just like the higgs boson discovery where all it did was prove old science theories correct? Are there any practical applications this could have that could affect the world as a whole or does this only impact the scientific community?

Edit: I guess this might have my answer: http://stuver.blogspot.com/2012/01/q-how-can-gravitational-waves-help.html Reading now.
 
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nOoblet16

Member
georly said:
I get that this is a fantastic breakthrough and now means we have the capacity to measure something we couldn't before - but... what does this mean for science applications? What can they do NOW that they did this that was not possible before? Is this just like the higgs boson discovery where all it did was prove old science theories correct? Are there any practical applications this could have that could affect the world as a whole or does this only impact the scientific community?

Edit: I guess this might have my answer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XhIJYuvrEFY Reading now.
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One of these old theories predicts about the wormholes. So it's always a good thing whenever these old predictions are practically proven to be true. It just means we are on the right track. It also means that we have a new way of observing the universe now rather than just light. We can use it to figure out observe a black hole and (I think?) what's inside a black hole !

These discoveries are so advanced that they simply cannot have practical applications within a few years of their discoveries, not even within a few decades. Higgs Boson is actually related to gravity because it explains why fundamental particles acquire mass when they should be massless, and mass...is what causes gravity. How ? by warping the space-time fabric. This was only predicted so far, and this experiments confirms this prediction.

So you see how everything is connected and one thing leads to another and maybe...just maybe we'll even discover wormholes someday :p
 
Stevey

Stevey

Member
So Ive been reading about this a lot, but can someone say in simple terms the benefit of this?
I get that it furthers our understanding of the Universe, but like what can we do with this knowledge?
 
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nOoblet16

Member
Stevey said:
I don't get it.
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This quote should be able to explain all you need.

One of the direct uses for gravitational waves will be to use them to turn the Universe into our own laboratory. There are many things that we cannot replicate on Earth, like the dense cores of neutron stars. Under extreme conditions like this, nuclear physics and thermodynamics can theoretically do some interesting things. However, we can't investigate those directly because we cannot create these environments ourselves. That's when we turn to the Universe for our laboratory! Prime candidates that will allow us to use gravitational waves to investigate this include pairs of neutron stars merging into one star, starquakes on these stars, or even rapidly rotating neutron stars with "mountains" on them (and I put mountains in quotation marks because neutron starts are believed to be so perfectly spherical that a deformation a few millimeters [a quarter of an inch or so] is 'huge'). Knowing the details of how nuclear physics and thermodynamics changes in these environments can have applications on Earth, although I can't tell you what they are yet.
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Learning about Black holes, Neutron star core...basically things that we cannot replicate on earth means we can learn about things that no one had any idea about since there was no way to experiment on this matter.
 
S

spekkeh

Banned
Yo scientists I'm really happy for you and imma let you finish, but didn't we kinda already know gravity waves existed for a hundred years? What's all this suddenly we can see?

It's really cool that we might be able to 'look' past the visible edge of the plasma state of the big bang though.
 
B

brainchild

Banned
Incredible news, though I imagine that its far reaching implications won't exactly be lighting the world on fire any time soon. There simply isn't any direct near-future application that will come as a result of this amazing discovery, which is why you will see the scientific community overcompensate for this by emphasizing its significance relative to other scientific discoveries.

Nevertheless, I'm personally absolutely thrilled with this news and it's always nice to be able to confirm your theories with direct observations, making even more complex physics models less tenuous.
 
F

Frozenprince

Banned
Biggest breakthrough in decades, this is mammoth.

We've unlocked the ability to see the universe with infinitely more clarity, this is like a new born animal opening it's eyes for the first time.
 
T

The Wall

Banned
brainchild said:
Incredible news, though I imagine that its far reaching implications won't exactly be lighting the world on fire any time soon. There simply isn't any direct near-future application that will come as a result of this amazing discovery, which is why you will see the scientific community overcompensate for this by emphasizing its significance relative to other scientific discoveries.
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Progress is slow with this kind of stuff. Literal lifetimes and entire academic careers to make small progress in some areas. But progress is still progress.
 
B

brainchild

Banned
The Wall said:
Progress is slow with this kind of stuff. Literal lifetimes and entire academic careers to make small progress in some areas. But progress is still progress.
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Absolutely, and I'm very grateful for it. It's just unfortunate because it's hard to get the general public excited about this stuff when you can't concretely show them how useful these types of discoveries will be, mostly because scientists can't even answer that question for themselves...yet.
 
JimmyRustler

JimmyRustler

Gold Member
SlimySnake said:
yeah i dont know what any of this means. tell me how this will help us understand the universe.
Click to expand...
You know that the universe is not only expanding but as it turns out it's expanding at an accelerated rate and no one knows why. Scientist call it Dark Matter but that is not much else than "we don't fucking know".

Now, seeing gravitational waves could and should help us understand why the expansion of the universe is accelerating, among many other things. If you do not realize the magnitude of such knowledge I cannot help you.
 
F

foxuzamaki

Doesn't read OPs, especially not his own
kavanf1 said:
Okay picture the universe as being the inside of a closed fridge. You are a microbe living on a crumb somewhere in the fridge. To you the fridge is vast, and you spend years building instruments to try to figure out what is out there in that vast darkness.

One day you develop an instrument that can detect that a magnetic field is keeping your universe sealed. Since you now know this, you can use this information to work out the exact outer limits of your fridge (ie where the door is). In turn you can develop technology that will allow you to open the fridge door, turn on the light, and reveal the great beyond.

So if you're with me so far, then taking all that into account, it becomes pretty clear that I haven't the faintest idea what I am talking about.
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Are you saying we can just straight up break the universe and that we now can know where the universe begins and ends?
 
T

Tempy

don't ask me for codes
Is the LIGO system safe from say, tectonic plate movement affecting the distance between mirrors and detectors?
 
L

L0st Id3ntity

Member
TheExorzist said:
You know that the universe is not only expanding but as it turns out it's expanding at an accelerated rate and no one knows why. Scientist call it Dark Matter but that is not much else than "we don't fucking know".
Click to expand...
Isn't that Dark Energy? Where Dark Matter is what makes up the remaining value of gravity that is mathematically needed to keep things in orbit as they are now.
 
T

Turin Turambar

Member
Tempy said:
Is the LIGO system safe from say, tectonic plate movement affecting the distance between mirrors and detectors?
Click to expand...

I think most of the real work of the project isn't in measuring the distance with the laser, that's the easy part, instead it's all about nullifying all the "noise" of the data, from tectonic plate movement to human activity provoking vibrations to who knows what else.
 
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