Existence Of Gravitational Waves Now Empirically Confirmed

**lcam88** · 13th February 2016, 22:08

Shadowself!

Welcome back.

The LIGO experiment as you quote above, at first glance, appears to be very very similar to the Michelson-Morley experiment of 1887.

It compared the speed of light in perpendicular directions, in an attempt to detect the relative motion of matter through the stationary luminiferous aether ("aether wind"). The result was negative, in that the expected difference between the speed of light in the direction of movement through the presumed aether, and the speed at right angles, was found not to exist; this result is generally considered to be the first strong evidence against the then-prevalent aether theory, and initiated a line of research that eventually led to special relativity, which rules out a stationary aether.

If memory serves, if the speed of light where altered by the movement of the medium it was thought to be propagating within, an interference pattern should emerge.

The results never did yield an interference pattern and so it was concluded that the theory of a medium of aether that light propagates through was invalid.

The text you quote above suggests an experiment of very similar setup, except where we have 4km of perpendicular legs... And we are trying to detect a difference within the width of an atom.

Do you feel up to commenting on this issue?

**Shadowself** · 14th February 2016, 14:21

Hi Icam88!

Me comment? LOL Sure...I'll try with only half a cup of coffee but I'm working on that as I write!

" LIGO Scientific Collaboration and Virgo Collaboration teams announced that they had directly detected gravitational waves using the Advanced LIGO detectors from a pair of black holes merging".

Interestingly enough the Virgo Collaboration team use a Michelson interferometer that is isolated from external disturbances: its mirrors and instrumentation are suspended and its laser beam operates in a vacuum. The instrument's two arms are three kilometres long.

The Michelson interferometer is especially known for its use by Albert Michelson and Edward Morley in the famous Michelson-Morley experiment (1887) in a configuration which would have detected the earth's motion through the supposed luminiferous aether that most physicists at the time believed was the medium in which light waves propagated. The null result of that experiment essentially disproved the existence of such an aether, leading eventually to the special theory of relativity and the revolution in physics at the beginning of the twentieth century.

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

LIGO cofounded by Kip Thorne and Ronald Drever of Caltech and Rainer Weiss of MIT since 1992 was to observe and detect gravitational waves.

My first thought is Kip Thorne the champion of Wormhole theory!

So if one can detect these gravitationl waves apart from the earth curvature essentially from space as the comment states from a prototype of LISA....this my friends when perfected would certainly detect any naturally occurring wormholes...and possibly (my conspiracy theory side comes out) any type of wormhole activity that might be perfected and "made" and possibly carrying travelers of time and space no? YES! It would certainly detect that!

I'll add more thought after I've had more coffee!

Good to see you all!

**Shadowself** · 14th February 2016, 15:49

Whoa Nelly! Coffee kicked in!

I've had some time to think on this and given the fact that Kip Thorne's goal is to build a stable wormhole...this "detector" LISA and LIGO would make a great tool for building a wormhole! Think about it....

If you were to attempt such a thing in spacetime....you would certainly need a detector to determine if it's stable enough to travel!

Whoa!!!!!!!!!!!

Thorne derived from general relativity the laws of motion and precession of black holes and other relativistic bodies, including the influence of the coupling of their multipole moments to the spacetime curvature of nearby objects. Thorne has also theoretically predicted the existence of universally antigravitating "exotic matter" – the element needed to accelerate the expansion rate of the universe, keep traversable wormhole "Star Gates" open and keep timelike geodesic free float "warp drives" working. With Clifford Will and others of his students, he laid the foundations for the theoretical interpretation of experimental tests of relativistic theories of gravity – foundations on which Will and others then built.

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

Double whoa!!!!!!!!

**lcam88** · 14th February 2016, 17:43

Very interesting.

Those are some interesting insights indeed. I would never have imagined...

Shadowself, do you think the results, in some way, challenges the 1887 conclusion of non-existence of the aether? Do you think these observations would be reason to revisit conclusions drawn on the original and followup experiments?

Why do I ask? Only because indeed the results that would have been reasoned to confirm the existence of the aether, would indeed be similar to what LIGO is observing right? Am I oversimplifying somewhere?

Thanks in advance.

**Aragorn** · 14th February 2016, 18:25

Here's Kip Thorne, a leading scientist, explaining the discovery of gravitational waves on RT television...

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9Zs-CjybTc

(With thanks to member URIKORN, who posted this video elsewhere on the forum.)

**Myst** · 15th February 2016, 08:01

.

**Shadowself** · 15th February 2016, 14:29

Originally posted by lcam88

Very interesting.

Those are some interesting insights indeed. I would never have imagined...

Shadowself, do you think the results, in some way, challenges the 1887 conclusion of non-existence of the aether? Do you think these observations would be reason to revisit conclusions drawn on the original and followup experiments?

Why do I ask? Only because indeed the results that would have been reasoned to confirm the existence of the aether, would indeed be similar to what LIGO is observing right? Am I oversimplifying somewhere?

Thanks in advance.

Good morning!

I'm not really qualified to determine that question. I do know that Aether has been equated to dark energy and that dark energy is said to distort gravitational waves...other than that I really cannot comment on that. This has been brought up several times during the quest for gravitational waves.

Hope that helps in your quest for an answer which I surely don't have.

I did run into a few videos by the LIGO team yesterday I would like to share here. They are short but pretty neat.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVJ6kKfZbZo

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zisf2xKvjA

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AomBBjLvTjA

**lcam88** · 15th February 2016, 15:07

Yeah, at the end of the day, standing theory does not require more considerations or contemplations of this medium. Thanks for the links.

**bsbray** · 15th February 2016, 19:42

And now for something completely different.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yis7GzlXNM

**hughe** · 15th February 2016, 23:09

Theory of General Relativity is pseudo hypothesis.

What's the speed of gravity? Did Mr. Einstein ever explicitly express what's the speed of gravity? Nothing can travel faster than the speed of light I assume. Earth's average orbital speed around the Sun is 100,000 km/h. It's traveling in space very fast. The average distance between Earth between the Sun takes eight minutes at speed of light. Suppose speed of gravity is c (300,000 km/s), our solar system could've been fell apart long time ago. Every moment I see how entire universe works against the delusional hypothesis manufactured by few scientists.

Simple fact is if a physical law is right, you don't need to build complex super equipment for observation. Modern astronomy becomes such absurd field of study that any reasonable man can't be part of. Few decades ago a group of scientist won Nobel prize in physics after detecting the 3K cosmic background of radiation. Apparently they fudged observed data from the satellite to justify the Big Bang theory because the stake was too high. The satellite was orbiting around near Earth's surface and couldn't separate temperature reading from Earth and outer space. Can you measure ambient temperature putting the gauge inside a container of boiling water?

To the EU team

In reference to the fake Gravitational waves discovery in LIGO project; few words from me ; Gravitational waves DO NOT exist (!); ' G' has electrical nature. The current EU concept of 'G' is based on Fritz London work ; in 1930 he explained the weak, attractive dipole electric bonding force that causes gas molecules to condense and form liquids and solids- the LONDON FORCE.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_dispersion_force
https://youtu.be/1iYKajMsYPY

This positive force originates in oscillating electric dipoles caused by slight distortion of otherwise electrically neutral atoms and molecules.The electric dipoles resonate and line up so that they attract each other. This is the - clue about real nature of 'G' . We are bonded to the Earth by a similiar but far weaker version of the London force between atoms. LDF like Gravity is always attractive (...) However we still do not know what is Gravity.(?) The full answear will probably come to us from our Electric Sun.

And more: 'G' is a complex phenomena; is affected f.ex. by atmospheric pressure; vide - Venus: the pressure at its surface is about 92 times that at Earth's—a pressure equivalent to that at a depth of nearly 1 kilometre under Earth's oceans.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus

Check Venus data on -' G' and think about it.

**Shadowself** · 16th February 2016, 06:04

What's the speed of gravity? Did Mr. Einstein ever explicitly express what's the speed of gravity?

Well....yes he did...

The speed of gravitational waves in the general theory of relativity is equal to the speed of light in vacuum, c. Within the theory of special relativity, the constant c is not exclusively about light; instead it is the highest possible speed for any interaction in nature. Formally, c is a conversion factor for changing the unit of time to the unit of space. This makes it the only speed which does not depend either on the motion of an observer or a source of light and/or gravity. Thus, the speed of "light" is also the speed of gravitational waves and any other massless particle. Such particles include the gluon (carrier of the strong force), the photons that make up light, and the theoretical gravitons which make up the associated field particles of gravity (however a theory of the graviton requires a theory of quantum gravity).

In classical theories of gravitation, the speed of gravity is the speed at which changes in a gravitational field propagate. This is the speed at which a change in the distribution of energy and momentum of matter results in subsequent alteration, at a distance, of the gravitational field which it produces. In a more physically correct sense, the "speed of gravity" refers to the speed of a gravitational wave, which is the same speed as the speed of light.

Also:

https://einstein.stanford.edu/conten...ity/q1510.html

**lcam88** · 16th February 2016, 11:52

Originally posted by hughe

What's the speed of gravity?

Newtons gravity equations do not have a variable defining time. That would suggest that, like the electric force, it is instantaneous in its effects.

Indeed it takes about 7 or 8 minutes for luminous light from the sun to reach the earth. If indeed the force of its gravity also required 7 or 8 minutes to effect the earth, things would be really wonky.

I am skeptical about this gravitational wave idea, needless to say more, especially after that exchange with Aragorn. (He is a champ)

Indeed electric instruments require noise filtration to separate noise that comes with the SIGINT from the actual signal. When you are searching for a signal in background radiation, effectively that is like selectively filtering noise and then declaring that some aspect of that total noise is something special.

Using the ripple in the pond analogy, it would be like watching the surface of a pond during a hailstorm and having the lab assistant throw a rock out into the middle of the pond to then try to separate the ripples caused by the rock from all the falling ice. If the rock was very large, indeed it would be possible to notice the wave it caused within a certain radius of the point of impact , but eventually it becomes part of the noise.

That is not to say the filtered signal is nothing special, especially when you managed to filter the SIGINT in such a way that pre-established equations explain the results. But it may be equally fitting to say the filters themselves are special.

**Shadowself** · 16th February 2016, 14:28

Newton's reservations....

While Newton was able to formulate his law of gravity in his monumental work, he was deeply uncomfortable with the notion of "action at a distance" which his equations implied. In 1692, in his third letter to Bentley, he wrote: "That one body may act upon another at a distance through a vacuum without the mediation of anything else, by and through which their action and force may be conveyed from one another, is to me so great an absurdity that, I believe, no man who has in philosophic matters a competent faculty of thinking could ever fall into it."

He never, in his words, "assigned the cause of this power". In all other cases, he used the phenomenon of motion to explain the origin of various forces acting on bodies, but in the case of gravity, he was unable to experimentally identify the motion that produces the force of gravity (although he invented two mechanical hypotheses in 1675 and 1717). Moreover, he refused to even offer a hypothesis as to the cause of this force on grounds that to do so was contrary to sound science. He lamented that "philosophers have hitherto attempted the search of nature in vain" for the source of the gravitational force, as he was convinced "by many reasons" that there were "causes hitherto unknown" that were fundamental to all the "phenomena of nature". These fundamental phenomena are still under investigation and, though hypotheses abound, the definitive answer has yet to be found. And in Newton's 1713 General Scholium in the second edition of Principia: "I have not yet been able to discover the cause of these properties of gravity from phenomena and I feign no hypotheses... It is enough that gravity does really exist and acts according to the laws I have explained, and that it abundantly serves to account for all the motions of celestial bodies."

Thus....Brings about Einstein's solution...

These objections were explained by Einstein's theory of general relativity, in which gravitation is an attribute of curved spacetime instead of being due to a force propagated between bodies. In Einstein's theory, energy and momentum distort spacetime in their vicinity, and other particles move in trajectories determined by the geometry of spacetime. This allowed a description of the motions of light and mass that was consistent with all available observations. In general relativity, the gravitational force is a fictitious force due to the curvature of spacetime, because the gravitational acceleration of a body in free fall is due to its world line being a geodesic of spacetime.

This...https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypotheses_non_fingo

Leads to this:

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

It is what it is...

**lcam88** · 16th February 2016, 16:43

Shadowself:

I agree that science has moved from the position of "I have not yet been able to discover the cause of these properties of gravity from phenomena and I feign no hypotheses...", to relativity where one can say "We have a theory".

That is progress.

My skepticism is better qualified as "probabilistic skepticism" rather than "deterministic skepticism", in that I look at something and think, "it possibly could be explained better", or even "a better answer/solution is possible". Those being quite different from "it's wrong", "I can prove it", or even the classical appeal to authority, "Einstein showed it to be so."

Let's examine this idea of spacetime, probabilistically skeptical here, and please correct or add to this where it is incorrect:

1) spacetime is a concept; "In physics, spacetime is any mathematical model that combines space and time into a single interwoven continuum.",
2) where our understanding of 3 degrees of freedom of a point or particle (x, y, and z) is given an additional degree of freedom where we can examine a point or particle in relation to a duration (time),

3) we can further examine nearby energies using the concept of spacetime,
3.1) changes in any of the 4 degrees of freedom must be in response to external stimulus,
3.2) by describing deviations from a nominal neutral state of the concept defined above, by supposing a "curvature" can occur as x,y or y,z or x,z are plotted on a 3d grid in relation to t,
3.3) any change in state observed within the 4 degrees of freedom are only introduced into spacetime and are only there to describe the nearby energies, and not there to describe spacetime,
3.4) so we describe possibilities that are difficult to conceptualize, of the nearby energy, by super-imposing the effects of those concepts onto the concept of spacetime in the near vincinity, this experiment permits greater discrimination and offers mathematics a chance to describe bits and bytes of the whole as independent parts, not because necessarily the bits and bytes are independent, but because they can be represented that way,

4) if you examine exactly what curvature means, considering along x, y, z and t(ime) we may be able to establish some things it is not:
4.1) it is not more than can be defined by the 4 degrees of freedom we are using to define it,
4.2) it is not a medium (aether), or anything else that requires particulate type consideration for any single point,
4.3) it is not the fundamental that may cause an observation, it is only an explanation (one possibility) of what is observed,

5) as you examine theories built on this concept, perhaps special relativity, you get insight into a relationship between light and matter as elaborated by that theory, the use of the concept of spacetime assists in "thought experiments" as well,
6) and if a theory adds nuances about what the spacetime concept actually is in such a way that it adds properties, those elaborations do not change what fundamentally is only a concept defined by 4 degrees of freedom, but would define a new conceptual construct; such an elaboration, where applicable, seems fitting as a new term so that studies made with the new concept could be identified easily as based on a different model,

7) the concept of gravity (a property of mass) applied to the concept of spacetime aids our understandings, we elegantly have gotten to step 3.4 and we have elaborate mathematical models that represent observations made in many circumstances, but its important to remember fundamentally those observations are of mass.

We are all consciously aware of what we describe as the infinite possibilities of the universe, from a position of probabilistic skepticism as I describe above, item 4.3 above makes it perfectly clear why such skepticism would be well founded.

Does the term "gravitational wave" mean anything different now that spacetime is defined as above? It certainly does mean more to me.

If indeed there is a medium that fills space, a hypothesis or theory that would further elaborate and describe such a medium would not be unfounded if that medium was deemed to be important. But, as long as we confuse spacetime with this yet untheorized medium, we have yet to reach the point where Newton said: "I feign no hypotheses..."

Here is another Sam Harris video that inspired all of this.