Gravitational waves: have US scientists heard echoes of the big bang?

Betreger
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Thanx. I toured the Hanford

Thanx. I toured the Hanford LIGO July 2012 and it is amazing what they are trying to do and how they are doing it.

Mike Hewson
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From here : RE: The

From here :

Quote:

The highlights of the schedule are :

- Receipt of funding for the fabrication and construction project in 2008.
- Delivery of first interferometer hardware to the observatory staging facilities in 2009.
- Decommissioning of initial LIGO at the LIGO Livingston Observatory in 2011, and simultaneous start of installation of Advanced LIGO there.
- Decommissioning of initial LIGO at the LIGO Hanford Observatory in 2012, and simultaneous start of installation of Advanced LIGO there.
- Both observatories in commissioning by 2013.
- Both observatories in operation by 2014.


which is consistent with this diagram. So that's the plan. However this document ( release dated three weeks ago ) contains this statement ( page 1 ) :

Quote:
... (1) Since the completion of Advanced LIGO construction is several years away, the details of the instrument performance relevant to scientific data ...


and there is another diagram/timeline on page 9 of same which puts S7 ( science run seven, the successor to S6 for which E@H has/is crunching ) at around 2015+. While page 10 has this table, describing that diagram :

[pre]The following table shows some of the milestones depicted in Figure 2:
Advanced LIGO Construction Milestones
End of S6 2010 Q4 COMPLETE
Advanced LIGO Commissioning Starts 2013 Q1 COMPLETE
Three interferometers accepted 2014 Q4 PENDING
Possible beginning of S7 2015 Q2 PENDING
Community engagement for Open Data
Broader Community Workshop 1 2011 Q4 COMPLETE
Broader Community Workshop 2 2014 Q4 PENDING
Engineering Runs
ER1 start 2012 Q1 COMPLETE
ER2 start 2012 Q3 COMPLETE
ER3 start 2013 Q1 COMPLETE
ER4 start 2013 Q3 COMPLETE
ER5 start 2014 Q1 PENDING
ER6 start 2014 Q4 DEFERRED[/pre]
I am in no way being being critical. T'is a bleeding edge this enterprise and it would be all for nought if not done right. This Bicep announcement will be a great boon for LIGO - the waves are out there! Let's catch 'em ! :-0 :-)

Cheers, Mike.

( edit ) And let us see if the Bicep findings tickle some more punters to come to E@H ! :-)

I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to make it shorter ...

... and my other CPU is a Ryzen 5950X :-) Blaise Pascal

Betreger
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RE: the waves are out

Quote:
the waves are out there! Let's catch 'em


Amen

MAGIC Quantum Mechanic
MAGIC Quantum M...
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RE: @Magic : We live in

Quote:
@Magic : We live in exciting times indeed. When we were babies this was all theory, to be chuckled at over canapes. Now there is a terrific synergy across scales happening.

Cheers, Mike.

Yes working together makes a difference Mike.

Times like these make me either wish I was 20 years old again or they come up with a way to make us live another 100+ years to see just what the future will be like.

But right now when I read the NASA site or watch some NASA TV I remember that I am 6 months older than NASA

Wouldn't mind just figuring out a way for us to just travel across our own galaxy!

(but I am laying in bed watching the Science Channel on one of my satellite dishes right now)

Betreger
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Mike Hewson
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RE: Good short


Thank you for that. It mentions several other epiphanies which I think in the longer term may be of greater importance. I'll have to have a looooong think before I can completely grasp them ( if ever ) but :

- it does in fact imply that gravity is quantised. Wow.

- yes Hawking radiation is a fact also. I was pontificating only recently that Hawking radiation was bordering on 'bad' theory because it may not ever be testable. I was thinking of black hole event horizons. But when the Universe was ultra small and inflation was dragging space out of causal contact ( ie. superluminal expansion ) then a horizon was created with severe spacetime curvature ( ie. gravity gradient ), out of which radiation will emanate as per Stephen Hawking. Tres Cool.

So the theorists will be scrambling. FWIW I think there is an overarching principle just within our grasp here. Could even be what the String Crew need to trim down their embarrassingly huge solution sets ......

Cheers, Mike.

( edit ) You may note that there's a chap called Oldershaw ( who has no actual association with a certain Amherst College ) commenting on various sites. His personal theories have just been blown to oblivion - by being flatly contradicted by the facts - but he doesn't appear to have noticed. I think the best scientists are those who subject themselves to some hard nosed self-reflection. He is a good example of the type one needs to be wary of online thesedays. You are of course welcome to be skeptical of myself too. And that's a good thing. :-)

I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to make it shorter ...

... and my other CPU is a Ryzen 5950X :-) Blaise Pascal

Bernd Machenschalk
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I have to admit that I am

I have to admit that I am still somewhat sceptical.

The paper was submitted to arxiv.org after the press release, the authors are listed alphabetically (no corresponding author exposed), and they have not even submitted it to a journal for publication yet (or at least still don't reveal that, "Submitted to a Journal TBD").

This is at least very bad scientific practice, and raises suspicion that they want to manipulate acceptance of the paper by creating public awareness first.

I would definitely wait for the results to be independently confirmed before I get too excited.

BM

BM

Mike Hewson
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Aw shoot. Political media

Aw shoot. Political media methods ..... getting the prior art slot for the Nobel.

I'll put IF THEN bracing around this for now.

Cheers, Mike.

I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to make it shorter ...

... and my other CPU is a Ryzen 5950X :-) Blaise Pascal

Maximilian Mieth
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The news get better and

The news get better and better.

Mike Hewson
Mike Hewson
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That's good. I liked

That's good. I liked :

Quote:
".... Doug Neidermeyer, a cosmologist at the U.S. Military Academy in West Point ..."


Nice touch. :-)

Cheers, Mike.

I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to make it shorter ...

... and my other CPU is a Ryzen 5950X :-) Blaise Pascal

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