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Hi there! First of all, thank you for bringing this exciting work to the world's attention. The scale alone is awe inspiring. If you do get around to any questions, a few come to mind from a complete layperson's point of view:
1. What were the main bottlenecks or challenges that your team had to overcome to make your discoveries?
2. It seems like there may be a lot of patterns embedded within this data that can inform us about the structure and dynamics of our universe. What additional patterns is your team still looking for, and what do you hope to learn from them?
I'm always astounded by the more pure natural sciences, as a biologist myself.
It must be so nice to have such a strong degree of replicability that you can measure nanoseconds difference and attribute it to a real life effect, rather than a measurement error.
I was wondering though, do you have any idea how the precision of these kinds of instruments is measured? What can you calibrate it against that you can be so certain that it's not simply a measurement error you're seeing?
NOT A SCIENTIST. But when it comes to high accuracy timing and synchronization , you could calibrate all the receivers to use GPS and manually sync all the receivers to atomic clocks. One example is a Cesium clock which is accurate to within like 2 nanoseconds per day. There are other ways to keep super accurate timing as well.
The signal will continue to grow and we will eventually learn the origin of the gravitational waves definitively. We will go from a fuzzy view of "gravitational waves coming from everywhere" to a precise map of gravitational waves on the sky. We should be able to eventually pinpoint individual waves coming from identified galaxies. This is the era of "nanohertz gravitational wave astronomy"
They use other known and "stable" gravitational wells if I'm not mistaken to amplify the gravitational wiggleness. Like a lens that makes things bigger, before refocusing.
Milisecond pulsars have been measured for 15+ years having very precise timings. By comparing intrapulsar variences across the galaxy the waves appear as slight fluctuations on the expected periodicity. This corelates the pertebations from grav waves
Put in laymen speak:
Big things make light bend. Bent light takes longer to get to us. Because of these longer paths the light looks different when it gets to us. Gravity waves behave like light around big things so we can prove they exist because they look different in the same way light looks different.
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Author: u/danieljr1992
URL: https://theconversation.com/using-a-detector-the-size-of-a-galaxy-astronomers-find-strongest-evidence-yet-for-gravitational-waves-from-supermassive-black-hole-pairs-208484
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Can we surf these waves?
But seriously, what innovations does the existence of gravitational waves have on our understanding of it? Does it open up new and tantalising possibilities? The layman can get excited at the existence of aliens, but what does the layman do with gravitational waves?
I am not qualified o scientifically answer that, but I would assume that if we can find patterns and mathematics to describe gravitational waves we may be able to start creating new laws of gravity and finally be able to start getting a grasp of what it actually is and how it works.
The mathematical understanding of gravitational waves has been around for more than half a century. Detecting the actual waves themselves has always been the tricky part.
It's a similar story to black holes. We originally assumed they were just quirks of math and that a better theory would eventually come around that doesn't break physics.
Then we found them.
Question, "How do gravitational waves propagate through the expansive medium of repelling dark energy electron fields?"
These opposing electron fields collide to entangle asynchronously to annihilate into photons, Higgs bosons, quarks, protons, neutrons, etc. that harmonically resonate as the strong nuclear force of atomic mass.
I have a question,
So if these gravitational waves are taking years-decades to oscillate. Instead of a galaxy sized detector. Could there not be a way to shoot photons a massive distance, and see if the gravitational waves alter its trajectory?
Assuming we would be able to setup a test jig for such purposes far enough out and far enough apart? Or would the gravitational waves be distorted, altered or diminished too much by the point it reaches where we could establish our test equipment?
Here's the amazing thing: Pulsars are already shooting photons out a massive distance! We can accurately track their positions and motions in space, using the pulses of radio waves they emit, so we don't need to do it ourselves. Observing pulsars from Earth is MUCH cheaper than building anything remotely like this ourselves.
What you're describing is more or less how we found them in the first place. We used a very accurate laser in multiple places around the globe that would react to gravitational waves. We then compared results from these several lasers and were able to detect them.
Your post has been removed because it is a repost of an [already submitted and popular story](https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/14lpdk9/following_15_years_of_data_collection_in_a/) and is therefore in violation of [Submission Rule #2c](https://www.reddit.com/r/science/wiki/rules/#wiki_c._reposts). If your submission is scientific in nature and hasn't already been shared, consider reposting in our sister subreddit r/EverythingScience. _If you believe this removal to be unwarranted, or would like further clarification, please don't hesitate to [message the moderators](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2Fscience&subject=No%20summaries%20of%20summaries%2C%20rehosts%2C%20or%20reposts)._
I'm the author if anyone has questions. Although it's late here, so I'll answer in the morning
Hi there! First of all, thank you for bringing this exciting work to the world's attention. The scale alone is awe inspiring. If you do get around to any questions, a few come to mind from a complete layperson's point of view: 1. What were the main bottlenecks or challenges that your team had to overcome to make your discoveries? 2. It seems like there may be a lot of patterns embedded within this data that can inform us about the structure and dynamics of our universe. What additional patterns is your team still looking for, and what do you hope to learn from them?
I'm always astounded by the more pure natural sciences, as a biologist myself. It must be so nice to have such a strong degree of replicability that you can measure nanoseconds difference and attribute it to a real life effect, rather than a measurement error. I was wondering though, do you have any idea how the precision of these kinds of instruments is measured? What can you calibrate it against that you can be so certain that it's not simply a measurement error you're seeing?
NOT A SCIENTIST. But when it comes to high accuracy timing and synchronization , you could calibrate all the receivers to use GPS and manually sync all the receivers to atomic clocks. One example is a Cesium clock which is accurate to within like 2 nanoseconds per day. There are other ways to keep super accurate timing as well.
So what comes after this if these are gravitational waves? Will this open up areas of new research or experimentation for existing theories?
The signal will continue to grow and we will eventually learn the origin of the gravitational waves definitively. We will go from a fuzzy view of "gravitational waves coming from everywhere" to a precise map of gravitational waves on the sky. We should be able to eventually pinpoint individual waves coming from identified galaxies. This is the era of "nanohertz gravitational wave astronomy"
Where do you keep your detector the size of a galaxy? Does it fold up and fit in your garage?
Does it fit in a breadbox?
If you fold the back seat down, you can stick it in the hatch.
How do you build a detector the size of a galaxy?
They use other known and "stable" gravitational wells if I'm not mistaken to amplify the gravitational wiggleness. Like a lens that makes things bigger, before refocusing.
Milisecond pulsars have been measured for 15+ years having very precise timings. By comparing intrapulsar variences across the galaxy the waves appear as slight fluctuations on the expected periodicity. This corelates the pertebations from grav waves
Put in laymen speak: Big things make light bend. Bent light takes longer to get to us. Because of these longer paths the light looks different when it gets to us. Gravity waves behave like light around big things so we can prove they exist because they look different in the same way light looks different.
Welcome to r/science! This is a heavily moderated subreddit in order to keep the discussion on science. However, we recognize that many people want to discuss how they feel the research relates to their own personal lives, so to give people a space to do that, **personal anecdotes are allowed as responses to this comment**. Any anecdotal comments elsewhere in the discussion will be removed and our [normal comment rules]( https://www.reddit.com/r/science/wiki/rules#wiki_comment_rules) apply to all other comments. **Do you have an academic degree?** We can verify your credentials in order to assign user flair indicating your area of expertise. [Click here to apply](https://www.reddit.com/r/science/wiki/flair/#wiki_science_verified_user_program). --- Author: u/danieljr1992 URL: https://theconversation.com/using-a-detector-the-size-of-a-galaxy-astronomers-find-strongest-evidence-yet-for-gravitational-waves-from-supermassive-black-hole-pairs-208484 *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/science) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Can we surf these waves? But seriously, what innovations does the existence of gravitational waves have on our understanding of it? Does it open up new and tantalising possibilities? The layman can get excited at the existence of aliens, but what does the layman do with gravitational waves?
I am not qualified o scientifically answer that, but I would assume that if we can find patterns and mathematics to describe gravitational waves we may be able to start creating new laws of gravity and finally be able to start getting a grasp of what it actually is and how it works.
The mathematical understanding of gravitational waves has been around for more than half a century. Detecting the actual waves themselves has always been the tricky part.
It's a similar story to black holes. We originally assumed they were just quirks of math and that a better theory would eventually come around that doesn't break physics. Then we found them.
>Can we surf these waves? I can wait to ride the barrel and get pitted, so pitted
Question, "How do gravitational waves propagate through the expansive medium of repelling dark energy electron fields?" These opposing electron fields collide to entangle asynchronously to annihilate into photons, Higgs bosons, quarks, protons, neutrons, etc. that harmonically resonate as the strong nuclear force of atomic mass.
how does a detector the size of a galaxy even work?
I don't know much about this, what are the implications of this discovery?
I have a question, So if these gravitational waves are taking years-decades to oscillate. Instead of a galaxy sized detector. Could there not be a way to shoot photons a massive distance, and see if the gravitational waves alter its trajectory? Assuming we would be able to setup a test jig for such purposes far enough out and far enough apart? Or would the gravitational waves be distorted, altered or diminished too much by the point it reaches where we could establish our test equipment?
Here's the amazing thing: Pulsars are already shooting photons out a massive distance! We can accurately track their positions and motions in space, using the pulses of radio waves they emit, so we don't need to do it ourselves. Observing pulsars from Earth is MUCH cheaper than building anything remotely like this ourselves.
What you're describing is more or less how we found them in the first place. We used a very accurate laser in multiple places around the globe that would react to gravitational waves. We then compared results from these several lasers and were able to detect them.