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Why can't this experiment be reproduced at a smaller scale in a more controlled setting?

From my albeit limited reading and understanding of it, it cant be replicated on a smaller scale because grav waves are almost infintessibly small. Right now, you and the preson you are standing beside are having an effect on space fabric, its just so small as to be basically pointless.
Only two black holes interacting can give readable readings to measure.
Think of trying to record a far off whisper on your iphone. The whisper is there and its real but you cant record it.
Now play that whisper through a loud guitar amp.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
You guys heads are going to explode when gravity waves, dark energy, dark matter, and black holes, and even space-time, are all proven to be figments of the imagination. Quantum physics is the biggest waste of human ingenuity to ever be conceived and astro-physics is bordering on religious dogma at this point. Actual science doesn't take place anymore. You should probably prove black holes exist with some solid evidence before you make theories and observations about black holes merging and creating gravity waves. I am really excited to see what discoveries NASA's new telescope is going to find - maybe we will be able to stop guessing about whats going on in the cosmos - but that's probably a long way off. Until then these PHD's can keep going on about their imagined universe and wasting grant money on fruitless experiments that can't even offer meaningful or useful data even if they are successful.

So your argument is that the current science is wrong, because the current evidence is not solid.

Do you have any reason why we (or anyone else) should take you seriously? Because this seems very much like a troll post to me.

Skepticism is in the nature of science. Why should I be taken seriously - that's not the right question - the right question is why should they be taken seriously? I'm not the one making outrageous claims - it is they. Should they be taken seriously because they are experts in their field? Because they took over 20 years to produce any data other than noise? Or because they are under pressure to publish to ensure grants and other funding? Where are the people asking the tough questions? Isn't it reasonable to conclude that after 20 years of searching for something with so many false positives you will eventually find a false positive you can't prove false? You don't need to be an astro physicist to criticize a bunk system.

(Sorry...forgot I don't want to argue )

Just ignore him, he'll go away eventually.

Like a couple of other people that lurk around here, he just comes in and says a bunch of ridiculous stuff to get everyone riled up; just look at his post history.

Yeah, I'm a bit of a sucker when it comes to bait.

Skepticism is in the nature of science.

What that means, though, is that scientists look at something and think how does that work, and they keep digging until they find an answer that holds up to scrutiny. It doesn't mean that when a scientist collects data, every other scientists asks "how do we know that's real? What if we're all brains in a jar and your experiment never even existed? What is life? What is reality? Who is truth? Why is the sky blue? You can't prove anything, go away, science is pointless."

 Xenomancers wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
You guys heads are going to explode when gravity waves, dark energy, dark matter, and black holes, and even space-time, are all proven to be figments of the imagination. Quantum physics is the biggest waste of human ingenuity to ever be conceived and astro-physics is bordering on religious dogma at this point. Actual science doesn't take place anymore. You should probably prove black holes exist with some solid evidence before you make theories and observations about black holes merging and creating gravity waves. I am really excited to see what discoveries NASA's new telescope is going to find - maybe we will be able to stop guessing about whats going on in the cosmos - but that's probably a long way off. Until then these PHD's can keep going on about their imagined universe and wasting grant money on fruitless experiments that can't even offer meaningful or useful data even if they are successful.

So your argument is that the current science is wrong, because the current evidence is not solid.

Do you have any reason why we (or anyone else) should take you seriously? Because this seems very much like a troll post to me.

Skepticism is in the nature of science. Why should I be taken seriously - that's not the right question - the right question is why should they be taken seriously? I'm not the one making outrageous claims - it is they. Should they be taken seriously because they are experts in their field? Because they took over 20 years to produce any data other than noise? Or because they are under pressure to publish to ensure grants and other funding? Where are the people asking the tough questions? Isn't it reasonable to conclude that after 20 years of searching for something with so many false positives you will eventually find a false positive you can't prove false? You don't need to be an astro physicist to criticize a bunk system.

I am sure humans heard this exact same thing when the wheel was invented.
How do I know it will improve my life? Who are you to say it will? You just want to be the center of attention!

Science takes time. Within that time that is taken they are trying very hard to prove themselves wrong, because that is the nature of science. Not only that, but there are others who will be looking at the work, combing it over to make sure it is as it is being claimed. It might be 20 more years before we see anything come of any of this.

 whembly wrote:
w00t!

What's the application of such technology?

Obviously, grav guns! Woo! So that's what grav weapons in 40k shoot. I always wondered how they shoot gravity.

Got this today:

The University of Glasgow has always been at the forefront of world-changing research. Today marks the announcement of a truly ground-breaking discovery.

100 years after Albert Einstein predicted their existence, ripples in the fabric of spacetime known as gravitational waves have been detected.

This is a monumental leap forward for physics and astrophysics that confirms Einstein's last unproven theory.

The gravitational wave signal came from the merging of two black holes in a distant part of the universe. Travelling at the speed of light, these gravitational waves have taken 1.3 billion years to reach Earth.

Scientists from our Institute for Gravitational Research have played a key role in the decades-long search for gravitational waves. The Institute’s Professor James Hough has worked in the field at the University since 1971. He said: “This discovery is the culmination of my career in science. I’m immensely proud to have been involved in the project and I’m very excited to see the fascinating new discoveries gravitational wave astronomy will bring us in the future”.

Learn how the University of Glasgow has helped to prove the existence of gravitational waves.

 ProtoClone wrote:


I am sure humans heard this exact same thing when the wheel was invented.

No, they most certainly didn't. The discovery of a wheel was led by pragmatism alone. It was discovered and proved to be more useful than what mankind used so far.

Gravitational Waves will, for a very long time, have zero practical use.

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:
Just ignore him, he'll go away eventually.

Like a couple of other people that lurk around here, he just comes in and says a bunch of ridiculous stuff to get everyone riled up; just look at his post history.

He makes small motions in the OT and then measures their effect?

 DarkLink wrote:

Skepticism is in the nature of science.

What that means, though, is that scientists look at something and think how does that work, and they keep digging until they find an answer that holds up to scrutiny. It doesn't mean that when a scientist collects data, every other scientists asks "how do we know that's real? What if we're all brains in a jar and your experiment never even existed? What is life? What is reality? Who is truth? Why is the sky blue? You can't prove anything, go away, science is pointless."

If I could exalt this more than once, I would.

This kind of thing is exactly why I wish more money was spent on space exploration/experimentation.


So many experiments simply cannot be done on earth.

One of the most interesting visuals I got during my education was a teacher pointing out that you can indeed have a tri angle with 3 90 degree angles in it.

You just had to draw it on a ball, so to the observer it appears as a triangle, and the angles would indeed measure as 90, but its not something you can do on "flat space"

The warped nature of space can have some really profound implications I think.

TLDR:


GO SCIENCE!

 DarkLink wrote:

Skepticism is in the nature of science.

What that means, though, is that scientists look at something and think how does that work, and they keep digging until they find an answer that holds up to scrutiny. It doesn't mean that when a scientist collects data, every other scientists asks "how do we know that's real? What if we're all brains in a jar and your experiment never even existed? What is life? What is reality? Who is truth? Why is the sky blue? You can't prove anything, go away, science is pointless."

This needs more exalts.

That is what skepticism is, what Xeno is spouting is not.

 curran12 wrote:

 DarkLink wrote:

Skepticism is in the nature of science.

What that means, though, is that scientists look at something and think how does that work, and they keep digging until they find an answer that holds up to scrutiny. It doesn't mean that when a scientist collects data, every other scientists asks "how do we know that's real? What if we're all brains in a jar and your experiment never even existed? What is life? What is reality? Who is truth? Why is the sky blue? You can't prove anything, go away, science is pointless."

This needs more exalts.

That is what skepticism is, what Xeno is spouting is not.

I think we can just link this and be done with it. I can think of no greater waste of time than trying to explain that yes, the Holocaust did happen, to some nut who ardently believes that no it never ever ever happened. We might as well go to Turkey and give a lecture on the Armenian Genocide. At least there, everyone knows it happened, they'll just throw us out of the country for saying it out loud

 Sigvatr wrote:

 ProtoClone wrote:


I am sure humans heard this exact same thing when the wheel was invented.

No, they most certainly didn't. The discovery of a wheel was led by pragmatism alone. It was discovered and proved to be more useful than what mankind used so far.

Gravitational Waves will, for a very long time, have zero practical use.

Well, since neither one of was there for the invention of the wheel we can't argue that but only in hindsight.

Gravitational waves don't have any practical use that we know of, yet.

 Xenomancers wrote:
Quantum physics is the biggest waste of human ingenuity to ever be conceived

Sorry, but this is just too hilarious to ignore. I think "complaining about how quantum mechanics is a 'waste of human ingenuity' using a computer that relies on quantum mechanics for its semiconductor components" is a pretty good definition of irony.

 jasper76 wrote:
Not sure I understand the question. Gravitational waves, if they indeed exist, are not technology.

We can ride the wave like the Tau on a micro scale

 DarkLink wrote:
every other scientists asks "how do we know that's real? What if we're all brains in a jar and your experiment never even existed? What is life? What is reality? Who is truth? Why is the sky blue? You can't prove anything, go away, science is pointless."

That's the job of the philosophers


Also... to answer Whembly's post on page 1.... the technological use for this is obvious: we have to weaponize it

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
the technological use for this is obvious: we have to weaponize it

Such is the way of Humans; discovery just leads to new ways of killing each other.

Wow. Quantum mechanics, which allows us to explain real-life phenomena, is a waste of time?

And so is the discovery of gravitational waves, which adds yet another tick box to the growing list of things General Relativity got right?

I never knew that confirming that our understanding of the universe as we currently understand it was a waste of time.

Over the course of about the last 200 years humans have moved from empirical observation to theory to the creation of technology for manipuiating the electromagnetic force. This is used in electric power generation and application such as lighting, radio, computers and so on.

Imagine if we could manipulate the gravitational force as easily. It could lead to anti-gravity vehicles, a stasis field for preserving things by time dilation effects, easy space travel, and all kinds of engineering possibilities.

The thing is that to get to such a technology, scientists probably will need to succeed in creating unified field theory and this will open up all kinds of other possibilities in technology.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
Quantum physics is the biggest waste of human ingenuity to ever be conceived

Sorry, but this is just too hilarious to ignore. I think "complaining about how quantum mechanics is a 'waste of human ingenuity' using a computer that relies on quantum mechanics for its semiconductor components" is a pretty good definition of irony.

No such computer exists. Nor is it practical. Please provide link to a working quantum computer that actually works...then maybe you could consider the irony.

 Xenomancers wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
Quantum physics is the biggest waste of human ingenuity to ever be conceived

Sorry, but this is just too hilarious to ignore. I think "complaining about how quantum mechanics is a 'waste of human ingenuity' using a computer that relies on quantum mechanics for its semiconductor components" is a pretty good definition of irony.

No such computer exists. Nor is it practical. Please provide link to a working quantum computer that actually works...then maybe you could consider the irony.

What on earth are you bibbling about. Quantum Computing refers to a very specific proposed technology based around exploiting superposition and entanglement, what he's referring to is the demonstrable fact of which you are apparently unaware that modern microcircuitry is entirely dependent on our understanding of quantum mechanics.

 DarkLink wrote:

Skepticism is in the nature of science.

What that means, though, is that scientists look at something and think how does that work, and they keep digging until they find an answer that holds up to scrutiny. It doesn't mean that when a scientist collects data, every other scientists asks "how do we know that's real? What if we're all brains in a jar and your experiment never even existed? What is life? What is reality? Who is truth? Why is the sky blue? You can't prove anything, go away, science is pointless."

Nothing I said was remotely philosophical. The experiment is crap. Say gravity waves exist - then this machine they used to detect these gravity waves would be picking up constant sources of gravity waves - from every direction. There would be events like this happening constantly on the magnitude of every second and there would be no particular focus on any particular source. The universe would be like the ocean with waves going in every direction and this machine would only be useful as a space time anomaly detector. The discovery does not even meet the parameters of what the discovery would imply. A black hole merger is likely happening every millisecond in the observable universe - just think about that. They provided links to how the machines works...it is essentially a giant laser level - tell me how such a device wouldn't be under constant bombardment from gravity waves?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Yodhrin wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
Quantum physics is the biggest waste of human ingenuity to ever be conceived

Sorry, but this is just too hilarious to ignore. I think "complaining about how quantum mechanics is a 'waste of human ingenuity' using a computer that relies on quantum mechanics for its semiconductor components" is a pretty good definition of irony.

No such computer exists. Nor is it practical. Please provide link to a working quantum computer that actually works...then maybe you could consider the irony.

What on earth are you bibbling about. Quantum Computing refers to a very specific proposed technology based around exploiting superposition and entanglement, what he's referring to is the demonstrable fact of which you are apparently unaware that modern microcircuitry is entirely dependent on our understanding of quantum mechanics.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZacggH9wB7Y - Think about it. No consesnous about what quantum physics means - whats happening - or why it works. Also I read an article about quntum computing years back. There is literally no way to protect a quantum feild from outside sources in a quantum computer - it will NEVER be practical. They can't even get funding for this stuff anymore.

Details of UK government funding for quantum computing research.
https://www.epsrc.ac.uk/research/ourportfolio/themes/quantumtech/

Intel allocates funding for quantum computing research
http://www.pcworld.com/article/2979731/components-processors/intel-promises-50m-for-quantum-computing-research.html

IBM wins US government funding for research into quantum computing
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/12/09/ibm_quantum_computing_funding/

1. When you quote someone I have on ignore, I am subjected to their ignorance. Stop that.

2. Don't feed the pseudo-trolls.

3. I want my grav gun. I have...heavy plans for it!

 kronk wrote:
3. I want my grav gun. I have...heavy plans for it!

 ProtoClone wrote:


Well, since neither one of was there for the invention of the wheel we can't argue that but only in hindsight.

Gravitational waves don't have any practical use that we know of, yet.

It's vastly different. The advantage of the wheel was visible right here. Right on the spot. Proving gravitational waves has zero use as of now and will see zero use or a very, very long amount of time. There isn't really an effectve idea on how you could use it.

Xenomancers...

With all due respect, you really seem like you have no idea what you're talking about. Quantum computing is a totally different subject than what Peregrine was posting about. Peregrine is referring to a semiconductor, which functions in a way that is understandable and in fact able to be implemented only because of our understandings of quantum physics. He was referring to the irony that you yourself used a computer with semiconductor components in it, to say that quantum physics is a giant waste of time.

Electricity itself is a quantum effect. Any society would understand alot less about the universe than we do now if you remove the idea of quantum physics.

A Quantum computer is one that attempts to use direct effects of quantum mechanics as the operations tools on data. It would allow an entirely different mathematical approach to computing in general. Also, it's absolutely not a waste of time. Mankind has to move forward. I'm alot happier with money in the hands of educated scientists than if it were up to you to determine what's "useful" for humanity to pursue.

@ Sigvatr:

How are you certain that it will have no effect on us? Are you a physicist? Maybe an engineer? Perhaps an alien whose society has already went through the discovery of gravitational waves, so you know it's going to take an immensely long time to get practical use out of it?

I'm sorry, but you simply cannot know that with enough certainty that anyone should listen to you. You are not the utmost authority on gravitational waves and possible practical applications of our knowledge of them. If given the task, I don't think you would have the means to do anything with it at all, and neither would I. The difference is I don't profess to know with certainty the effect it will have on our society and our understandings of other possibly related phenomena. Furthermore, something doesn't need to be directly translatable into a technology for it to be a useful endeavor, we've known about atoms for how long now and still haven't managed to produce a cold fusion reactor? Yet a cold fusion reactor would be very incredibly useful. Understanding the universe is in itself enough of a reward and practical use for us to pursue ALL knowledge.

Also, how long is too long? who cares if it takes 200 years to get practical use out of the knowledge? Are we running short on time as a species? Should we just give up on any endeavor that might take a few generations? Is the fact that you may not see use out of it in your lifetime enough for you to deny all future generations access to the knowledge and technology? Are you prepared to be part of a society that's too lazy to think about advancement because it might take awhile?

If a discovery takes a long time, isn't that more justification for it to be started earlier and worked on with more fervor, than simply ignored because it's difficult?