Have gravitational waves FINALLY been found? Thursday press conference expected to unveil Albert Ein

[bananas]

Source: Daily Mail

- Signals have apparently been detected by the Advanced Ligo detector
- Astronomers working on the observatory are apparently analysing the data
- Rumours claim the signals are the first evidence of gravitational waves
- Gravitational waves are predicted by Einstein's General Theory of Relativity
- The results will be unveiled on Thursday at 10.30 EST (15.30GMT).

They are said to be elusive ripples in the fabric of space and time created by every massive object in the universe, but despite decades of searching scientists have never seen them.

That could be about to change.

Rumours are spreading among physicists that researchers have detected gravitational waves for the very first time, a century after they were proposed by Albert Einstein.

It is believed an experiment called the Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (Ligo) has picked up signals from these waves just a few months after starting - and the results will be unveiled on Thursday at 10.30 EST (15.30GMT).

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Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3437846/Have-gravitational-waves-FINALLY-Thursday-press-conference-expected-unveil-Albert-Einstein-s-theory-ripples-space-time-proved.html

[bananas]

1. With rumors flying, scientists are set to make a big announcement on gravitational waves

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2016/02/09/with-rumors-flying-scientists-are-set-to-make-a-big-announcement-on-gravitational-waves/

With rumors flying, scientists are set to make a big announcement on gravitational waves

By Rachel Feltman February 9 at 9:01 AM

The rumors were (probably) (possibly) (maybe) true. Last month, you may recall, we reported that award-winning physicist Lawrence Krauss was stoking Twitter rumors about the detection of gravitational waves. Krauss claimed to have confirmation that the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO), a collaboration between physicists at MIT and Caltech, was close to making a big announcement.

Lawrence M. Krauss
✔ ‎@LKrauss1

My earlier rumor about LIGO has been confirmed by independent sources. Stay tuned! Gravitational waves may have been discovered!! Exciting.

7:46 AM - 11 Jan 2016

Now the good folks at LIGO have sent out a media alert for a news conference on Thursday. And, well, scientists don't tend to gather the media at the National Press Club to announce null results.

Gravitational waves, in case you forgot, are ripples in the fabric of space-time. Using theoretical physics, scientists are pretty certain that large objects in space must cause these ripples – much like a bowling ball would warp the shape of a stretchy sheet you rolled it around on. And these ripples should change the movement of other, smaller objects — just imagine the path of a marble rolling on a flat sheet, versus the path of one rolling in the wake of a sheet-bending bowling ball.

<snip>

[valerief]

2. Muy exciting stuff!!!!

[bananas]

8. New window to the universe

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/feb/09/watch-this-spacetime-gravitational-wave-discovery-expected

Watch this spacetime: gravitational wave discovery expected
Ian Sample Science editor
Tuesday 9 February 2016 10.59 EST

<snip>

But there is more to the discovery of gravitational waves than simply proving they exist. If the LIGO signal is as strong as rumours suggest, new instruments could be built to detect gravity waves from colliding black holes and other hugely energetic events all over the universe.

“It would be like having a telescope that, instead of looking at objects in the electromagnetic spectrum, is looking at them with gravitational waves,” said Ferreira. “We could see things in a completely different way. It would be very blurred vision - gravitational waves are not good at pinpointing objects - but they would help us understand what happens when black holes hs fall into one another.”

“The fact is whenever we’ve looked at the universe in new ways, with x-rays, with radio waves, we’ve discovered incredible stuff, exotica. So this is going to open up a new window, and for sure we’ll discover bizarre stuff,” he added.

<snip>

[xocet]

3. Here is the notice to the media...

Thursday: Scientists to provide update on the search for gravitational waves

100 years after Einstein predicted the existence of gravitational waves, the National Science Foundation gathers scientists from Caltech, MIT and the LIGO Scientific Collaboration to update the scientific community on efforts to detect them.

(Washington, DC) -- Journalists are invited to join the National Science Foundation as it brings together the scientists from Caltech, MIT and the LIGO Scientific Collaboration (LSC) this Thursday at 10:30 a.m. at the National Press Club for a status report on the effort to detect gravitational waves - or ripples in the fabric of spacetime - using the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO).

...

WHEN:

Thursday, Feb. 11, 2016
10:30 AM US EST

WHERE:

The National Press Club
Holeman Lounge
529 14th Street NW, 13th Floor
Washington, DC 20045

...

https://www.ligo.caltech.edu/news/ligo20160208

[Initech]

4. Is the Tesseract unstable again?

[bananas]

5. It was a dark and stormy night ...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Wrinkle_in_Time

The book begins with the line "It was a dark and stormy night," an allusion to the opening words in Edward George Bulwer-Lytton's 1830 novel Paul Clifford. Unable to sleep during a thunderstorm, Meg descends from her attic room to find Charles Wallace sitting at the table drinking milk and eating bread and jam. They are then joined by their mother, and are visited by their new eccentric neighbor, Mrs Whatsit. In the course of conversation, Mrs Whatsit casually mentions there is such a thing as a tesseract, which causes Mrs. Murry to almost faint.

[Initech]

7. As long as it doesn't unleash Loki I'm fine with it!

[MRadtke]

17. Si-Fi is cool!

Thank you so very much for posting that. I've always been a fan of science fiction and that was one of the first Si-Fi books I have ever read. I remember buying it through Scholastic Books when in grade school back in the 60's. Think I'll pick up a copy at the library and read it again.

I also like trying to keep up with what the latest thinking is on the science front. I read Brian Greene's books and am now working on the books written by Lee Smolin. Smolin is quite an original thinker who proposes that modern physics is off track and that there is something (possibly very simple) about space and time that we don't quite understand yet. I personally think he is more right than wrong.

[Flying Squirrel]

19. ...

[awoke_in_2003]

20. At least they didn't use the word sultry.

https://m.

[Kip Humphrey]

6. THIS IS YUUUUGE!!!

[Surya Gayatri]

9. Peerless Albert must be gazing down and grinning ironically: "See, I told you so..."

[johnnyrocket]

10. Gravity is a force of nature scientist don't understand.

Exactly its force origins, the whole dark matter/dark energy theory to explain away galaxies (they don't behave like objects with 'normal' gravity). Where is gravity in tiny objects, and how does gravity travel. Finding out anything about gravity would be an incredible discovery leap.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

13. Gravity is exceedingly weak. Gravity travels by wave-particle duality.

The force originates in mass.

Dark matter / dark energy do NOT "explain away galaxies". Dark matter and dark energy are very different things. Galaxies are easy to observe. You can see some with a naked eye. They are well-established as astronomical objects.

Dark matter is needed to account for the mass of galaxies which is known by observed orbital motions.

Dark energy is theorized to account for the predicted non-collapse of the universe. There is no "big crunch" expected.

Gravity comes from mass, but since gravity is so weak, it is practically impossible to measure in tiny objects. That does NOT mean that it is not there.

Gravity travels by exchange of particles / waves, but waves and particles are a duality and interchangeable depending on what is convenient for one mathematical treatment or another. This is the same as light (electromagnetic spectrum of radio waves through heat through light through UV on to microwave and X-rays and gamma rays) manifesting as both particles and waves.

You can find out something about gravity by stepping out of a tenth-story window, but I do NOT recommend that experiment.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

11. Now all we need is a tribophysical waveform macro-kinetic extrapolator.

[kentauros]

14. Just the thing to make my interocitor work!

[PSPS]

15. I remember "This island Earth" fascinating me way back when.

[kentauros]

18. I remember people weren't happy when MST3k picked it for their theatrical-release movie.

However, they still did a good job. Thus, I like both the original and the MST version. Kind of like my opinion on the movie First Spaceship on Venus and how both versions are worth watching

[Mustellus]

12. The orbital decay of the binary pulsar....

(aka God's gift to General Relativity) already matches the gravitational wave prediction. That's not seeing the waves, that's seeing the energy they carry off.

[Bigmack]

16. SO wish I could understand this stuff! nt (Ms Bigmack)

[burrowowl]

21. K&R!!!!!!