RE: [Vo]:LIGO Gravity Waves... So what?

[Russ George]

What, if anything, does this new LIGO GW work say about the ideas of Tom
VanFlandern whose papers showed the speed of gravity to be e9 times C.
Perhaps there is room for more than one kind of gravity wave, much like the
P and S waves in seismology. 

 

From: Russ George [mailto:russ.geo...@gmail.com] 
Sent: Thursday, February 11, 2016 5:23 PM
To: vortex-l@eskimo.com
Subject: [Vo]:LIGO Gravity Waves... So what?

 

It seems the announcement of showing gravity waves are real is only of value
to obscure academic discussions. Unless someone here might illuminate us
about some practical derivatives that might be revealed due to the findings.

Re: [Vo]:LIGO Gravity Waves... So what?

[Jed Rothwell]

Russ George  wrote:

It seems the announcement of showing gravity waves are real is only of
> value to obscure academic discussions. Unless someone here might illuminate
> us about some practical derivatives that might be revealed due to the
> findings.
>

You never know what might be practical. Einstein proposed stimulated
emission in 1917. This was not proved to exist for some time and it did not
result in anything useful until the discovery of the maser and later the
laser in 1960. The laser is one of the most useful devices ever invented,
but for many years it was called "a solution in search of a problem."

When JJ Thompson discovered the electron and the cathode ray tube in 1897,
I recall one of the students said, "here's to the electron, long may it
remain useless!" It was an esoteric discovery at first.

Radar was invented as part of an effort to measure the height of the
ionosphere. On the face of it, that was a purely academic question.

- Jed

Re: [Vo]:LIGO Gravity Waves... So what?

[Giovanni Santostasi]

There is an entire field of possible technological applications of GW. But
for GW to have practical applications they have to be at high frequency and
so not as the one discussed in the astrophysical context (these waves have
frequencies that range between few Hz to thousands of Hz). This is because
the amplitude of the waves is proportional to the frequency of the waves
and the accelerating mass that produces them. A huge mass like a black hole
would create low frequency waves but because of the large mass involved the
waves would be big enough to be detected on earth.

For a human sized device (so small mass) to produce gravitational waves
that can be detected by a receiver they have to be at Mega or even Giga Hz
frequencies.
Google high frequency gravitational waves.

People wrote papers about possible applications. From fuel-less spaceships
to cell phones that could communicate with another cell phone directly even
across the entire earth (given GW can go across the earth without being
disturbed, let alone a building or ocean or anything).
Submarines could communicate with GW even if underwater and so on. Many
interesting applications.



On Fri, Feb 12, 2016 at 9:41 AM, Jed Rothwell  wrote:

> Russ George  wrote:
>
> It seems the announcement of showing gravity waves are real is only of
>> value to obscure academic discussions. Unless someone here might illuminate
>> us about some practical derivatives that might be revealed due to the
>> findings.
>>
>
> You never know what might be practical. Einstein proposed stimulated
> emission in 1917. This was not proved to exist for some time and it did not
> result in anything useful until the discovery of the maser and later the
> laser in 1960. The laser is one of the most useful devices ever invented,
> but for many years it was called "a solution in search of a problem."
>
> When JJ Thompson discovered the electron and the cathode ray tube in 1897,
> I recall one of the students said, "here's to the electron, long may it
> remain useless!" It was an esoteric discovery at first.
>
> Radar was invented as part of an effort to measure the height of the
> ionosphere. On the face of it, that was a purely academic question.
>
> - Jed
>
>

Re: [Vo]:LIGO Gravity Waves... So what?

[H LV]

Dave, I think that link was posted by H Ucar.

Harry

On Fri, Feb 12, 2016 at 11:21 AM, David Roberson <dlrober...@aol.com> wrote:

> That paper is damaged according to my computer but I found the one that
> Harry posted.
>
> Do you have information concerning the filtering that the signal plus
> noise is subjected to before it is interpreted?   Also,  do these events
> only take place at at low rate throughout the universe?  I suppose that is
> true for super nova explosions and this is likely to be just as rare of an
> event.
>
> These teams need to be congratulated if the detections continue to be
> confirmed.  I remain weary of announcements that are produced so quickly.
>
> Dave
>
>
> -Original Message-
> From: Giovanni Santostasi <gsantost...@gmail.com>
> To: vortex-l <vortex-l@eskimo.com>
> Sent: Fri, Feb 12, 2016 11:08 am
> Subject: Re: [Vo]:LIGO Gravity Waves... So what?
>
> Here is the paper:
> https://journals.aps.org/prl/pdf/10.1103/PhysRevLett.116.061102
>
> The detection statistics is 5.1 sigma, that corresponds to a p value of
> 3x10-7 or 1 in 3.5 million that the signal is due to chance. In the paper
> they discuss the background noise and what to expect from it.
> But what is more astounding is the waveform itself as detected by both
> detectors (with a small time shift expected by the fact the waves travel at
> the velocity of light).
> You have a beautiful time evolution of the signal. In fact you can
> separate the detected signal in 3 parts: inspiraling, merger and ring down.
> They use relativistic approximate equations (basically an expansion with
> correction at many decimal places) to find a model that fits the observed
> data and only a merger of black holes with certain masses, orientation
> towards the detector, spin and distance fits with high accuracy the data.
> It is almost incredible how well the model actually fits the data. Besides
> some non Gaussian noise that is always present in the detector the observed
> waveforms look like the solution of a GR graduate textbook end of chapter
> exercise problem.
>
>
>
> On Fri, Feb 12, 2016 at 10:57 AM, David Roberson <dlrober...@aol.com>
> wrote:
>
>> How can we be confident that this is not just a false alarm?  It seems a
>> bit premature to make this announcement since the claimed event is a
>> billion light years away from Earth.  Are we to assume that this particular
>> event at that great distance is the only one that is showing up on the
>> instrument?  What proof is there that millions more are not present at
>> closer distances which would be noise to filter out?
>>
>> Has anyone released information concerning the signal to noise for this
>> discovery?  Also, it is a bit difficult to believe that the device can tell
>> the actual distance and direction of the black hole collision.
>>
>> Has this been replicated?  There is much more evidence for cold fusion
>> than for this discovery and I have a strong suspicion that it will be
>> overturned one day.  Big science making big claims again...I hope it is
>> true but it is unlikely.
>>
>> Dave
>>
>>
>> -Original Message-
>> From: Giovanni Santostasi <gsantost...@gmail.com>
>> To: vortex-l <vortex-l@eskimo.com>
>> Sent: Thu, Feb 11, 2016 9:28 pm
>> Subject: Re: [Vo]:LIGO Gravity Waves... So what?
>>
>> By the way, gravitational waves were the topic of my dissertation so feel
>> free to ask any question about the topic. It is very fascinating.
>>
>> On Thu, Feb 11, 2016 at 9:26 PM, Giovanni Santostasi <
>> gsantost...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> It opens a complete different window on the Universe.
>>> The analogy that is often given is imagine the cosmic show is like a TV
>>> show. Until now we had video but not audio. Finally we turned the audio on.
>>> Gravitational waves are a different but complementary way to observe the
>>> universe.
>>> We already learning things we could not learn before just using EM
>>> radiation. For example that there are black holes systems with such large
>>> masses.
>>> This has consequences in terms of galaxy evolution and how stars were
>>> formed.
>>> And this is just the beginning.
>>> The ultimate price is when we will see the gravitational waves from Big
>>> Bang.
>>> While the Microwave Cosmic Background tell us abut the universe at a
>>> very early stage (500 K years) we cannot receive any earlier information
>>> about the universe using EM radiation.
>>> The equivalent gravitational wave background when detected 

RE: [Vo]:LIGO Gravity Waves... So what?

[Jones Beene]

From: Giovanni Santostasi 

 

Ø  There is an entire field of possible technological applications of GW. But 
for GW to have practical applications they have to be at high frequency…

 

Even at low frequency, it is too bad that there were no reports of simultaneous 
energy bursts in ongoing LENR experiments (or any other kind of energy 
production) at the exact time of the GW event… or maybe there was/is available 
data, and the experimenter has not yet realized the significance of the timing.

 

It could be worth the effort for someone or group - to dig up the data for 
things like neutron flux in fission reactors, in order to look for a possible 
correspondence. Even blips in grid power monitoring could have shown something.

 

Ya’ never know till you look…

 

 

Re: [Vo]:LIGO Gravity Waves... So what?

[Giovanni Santostasi]

There was not much filtering going on because the signal was so evident, 24
SNR.

Other searches like looking for GW from rotating neutron stars try to
detect very weak signals in noise because you can integrate the supposed
signal (that it is continuous and if existent could last billion of years)
over time.
This particular signal was very loud so the main cleaning was by looking at
other non gravitational channels. They have dozen of sensors that measure
seismic activity, temperature and other type of noise and the signal is
cleaned up using this information. There was some wavelet analysis done to
extract the possible original waveform but the main test was to compare the
detected signal with the GR model.

There is a further cool thing to consider that the sensitivity of the 2
detectors was slightly different because of the different orientation of
the huge L of the interferometers. The signal is strongest when the L is
perpendicular to the direction of motion of the wave. Because of their
different locations on earth the 2 detectors have slightly different
sensitivity (or antenna) patterns and this was perfectly evident in the
data, exactly as GR predicted.
Yes, the data looks so good that at first many of the LIGO scientists
thought it was an artificial injection to test their detection algorithms.
They had false alarms like these before. But it is not the case this time.
It is not a sudden announcement. The detection happened in September, the
conference press happened almost 6 months later (LIGO people are super nit
picking I can assure you).







On Fri, Feb 12, 2016 at 11:21 AM, David Roberson <dlrober...@aol.com> wrote:

> That paper is damaged according to my computer but I found the one that
> Harry posted.
>
> Do you have information concerning the filtering that the signal plus
> noise is subjected to before it is interpreted?   Also,  do these events
> only take place at at low rate throughout the universe?  I suppose that is
> true for super nova explosions and this is likely to be just as rare of an
> event.
>
> These teams need to be congratulated if the detections continue to be
> confirmed.  I remain weary of announcements that are produced so quickly.
>
> Dave
>
>
> -Original Message-
> From: Giovanni Santostasi <gsantost...@gmail.com>
> To: vortex-l <vortex-l@eskimo.com>
> Sent: Fri, Feb 12, 2016 11:08 am
> Subject: Re: [Vo]:LIGO Gravity Waves... So what?
>
> Here is the paper:
> https://journals.aps.org/prl/pdf/10.1103/PhysRevLett.116.061102
>
> The detection statistics is 5.1 sigma, that corresponds to a p value of
> 3x10-7 or 1 in 3.5 million that the signal is due to chance. In the paper
> they discuss the background noise and what to expect from it.
> But what is more astounding is the waveform itself as detected by both
> detectors (with a small time shift expected by the fact the waves travel at
> the velocity of light).
> You have a beautiful time evolution of the signal. In fact you can
> separate the detected signal in 3 parts: inspiraling, merger and ring down.
> They use relativistic approximate equations (basically an expansion with
> correction at many decimal places) to find a model that fits the observed
> data and only a merger of black holes with certain masses, orientation
> towards the detector, spin and distance fits with high accuracy the data.
> It is almost incredible how well the model actually fits the data. Besides
> some non Gaussian noise that is always present in the detector the observed
> waveforms look like the solution of a GR graduate textbook end of chapter
> exercise problem.
>
>
>
> On Fri, Feb 12, 2016 at 10:57 AM, David Roberson <dlrober...@aol.com>
> wrote:
>
>> How can we be confident that this is not just a false alarm?  It seems a
>> bit premature to make this announcement since the claimed event is a
>> billion light years away from Earth.  Are we to assume that this particular
>> event at that great distance is the only one that is showing up on the
>> instrument?  What proof is there that millions more are not present at
>> closer distances which would be noise to filter out?
>>
>> Has anyone released information concerning the signal to noise for this
>> discovery?  Also, it is a bit difficult to believe that the device can tell
>> the actual distance and direction of the black hole collision.
>>
>> Has this been replicated?  There is much more evidence for cold fusion
>> than for this discovery and I have a strong suspicion that it will be
>> overturned one day.  Big science making big claims again...I hope it is
>> true but it is unlikely.
>>
>> Dave
>>
>>
>> -Original Message-
>> From: Giovanni Santostasi <gsantost...@gmail.com&g

Re: [Vo]:LIGO Gravity Waves... So what?

[David Roberson]

How can we be confident that this is not just a false alarm?  It seems a bit 
premature to make this announcement since the claimed event is a billion light 
years away from Earth.  Are we to assume that this particular event at that 
great distance is the only one that is showing up on the instrument?  What 
proof is there that millions more are not present at closer distances which 
would be noise to filter out?
 
Has anyone released information concerning the signal to noise for this 
discovery?  Also, it is a bit difficult to believe that the device can tell the 
actual distance and direction of the black hole collision.

Has this been replicated?  There is much more evidence for cold fusion than for 
this discovery and I have a strong suspicion that it will be overturned one 
day.  Big science making big claims again...I hope it is true but it is 
unlikely.

Dave
 
 
-Original Message-
From: Giovanni Santostasi <gsantost...@gmail.com>
To: vortex-l <vortex-l@eskimo.com>
Sent: Thu, Feb 11, 2016 9:28 pm
Subject: Re: [Vo]:LIGO Gravity Waves... So what?



By the way, gravitational waves were the topic of my dissertation so feel free 
to ask any question about the topic. It is very fascinating. 


On Thu, Feb 11, 2016 at 9:26 PM, Giovanni Santostasi <gsantost...@gmail.com> 
wrote:

It opens a complete different window on the Universe. 
The analogy that is often given is imagine the cosmic show is like a TV show. 
Until now we had video but not audio. Finally we turned the audio on. 
Gravitational waves are a different but complementary way to observe the 
universe. 
We already learning things we could not learn before just using EM radiation. 
For example that there are black holes systems with such large masses. 
This has consequences in terms of galaxy evolution and how stars were formed. 
And this is just the beginning. 
The ultimate price is when we will see the gravitational waves from Big Bang. 
While the Microwave Cosmic Background tell us abut the universe at a very early 
stage (500 K years) we cannot receive any earlier information about the 
universe using EM radiation. 
The equivalent gravitational wave background when detected will tells 
information from a fraction of a second after the Big Bang. Only gravitational 
radiation can give us a picture of the universe that early. 

Also information from events like the one just observed eventually would give 
us clues on how gravity and quantum mechanics work together. 
The consequences of this discovery are enormous. 









On Thu, Feb 11, 2016 at 8:22 PM, Russ George <russ.geo...@gmail.com> wrote:


It seems the announcement of showing gravity waves are real is only of value to 
obscure academic discussions. Unless someone here might illuminate us about 
some practical derivatives that might be revealed due to the findings.

Re: [Vo]:LIGO Gravity Waves... So what?

[David Roberson]

That paper is damaged according to my computer but I found the one that Harry 
posted.
 
Do you have information concerning the filtering that the signal plus noise is 
subjected to before it is interpreted?   Also,  do these events only take place 
at at low rate throughout the universe?  I suppose that is true for super nova 
explosions and this is likely to be just as rare of an event.

These teams need to be congratulated if the detections continue to be 
confirmed.  I remain weary of announcements that are produced so quickly.

Dave
 
 
-Original Message-
From: Giovanni Santostasi <gsantost...@gmail.com>
To: vortex-l <vortex-l@eskimo.com>
Sent: Fri, Feb 12, 2016 11:08 am
Subject: Re: [Vo]:LIGO Gravity Waves... So what?



Here is the paper:
https://journals.aps.org/prl/pdf/10.1103/PhysRevLett.116.061102



The detection statistics is 5.1 sigma, that corresponds to a p value of 3x10-7 
or 1 in 3.5 million that the signal is due to chance. In the paper they discuss 
the background noise and what to expect from it. 
But what is more astounding is the waveform itself as detected by both 
detectors (with a small time shift expected by the fact the waves travel at the 
velocity of light). 
You have a beautiful time evolution of the signal. In fact you can separate the 
detected signal in 3 parts: inspiraling, merger and ring down. They use 
relativistic approximate equations (basically an expansion with correction at 
many decimal places) to find a model that fits the observed data and only a 
merger of black holes with certain masses, orientation towards the detector, 
spin and distance fits with high accuracy the data. It is almost incredible how 
well the model actually fits the data. Besides some non Gaussian noise that is 
always present in the detector the observed waveforms look like the solution of 
a GR graduate textbook end of chapter exercise problem. 






On Fri, Feb 12, 2016 at 10:57 AM, David Roberson <dlrober...@aol.com> wrote:

How can we be confident that this is not just a false alarm?  It seems a bit 
premature to make this announcement since the claimed event is a billion light 
years away from Earth.  Are we to assume that this particular event at that 
great distance is the only one that is showing up on the instrument?  What 
proof is there that millions more are not present at closer distances which 
would be noise to filter out?
 
Has anyone released information concerning the signal to noise for this 
discovery?  Also, it is a bit difficult to believe that the device can tell the 
actual distance and direction of the black hole collision.
 
Has this been replicated?  There is much more evidence for cold fusion than for 
this discovery and I have a strong suspicion that it will be overturned one 
day.  Big science making big claims again...I hope it is true but it is 
unlikely.
 
Dave

 
 
-Original Message-
From: Giovanni Santostasi <gsantost...@gmail.com>
To: vortex-l <vortex-l@eskimo.com>
Sent: Thu, Feb 11, 2016 9:28 pm
Subject: Re: [Vo]:LIGO Gravity Waves... So what?



By the way, gravitational waves were the topic of my dissertation so feel free 
to ask any question about the topic. It is very fascinating. 


On Thu, Feb 11, 2016 at 9:26 PM, Giovanni Santostasi <gsantost...@gmail.com> 
wrote:

It opens a complete different window on the Universe. 
The analogy that is often given is imagine the cosmic show is like a TV show. 
Until now we had video but not audio. Finally we turned the audio on. 
Gravitational waves are a different but complementary way to observe the 
universe. 
We already learning things we could not learn before just using EM radiation. 
For example that there are black holes systems with such large masses. 
This has consequences in terms of galaxy evolution and how stars were formed. 
And this is just the beginning. 
The ultimate price is when we will see the gravitational waves from Big Bang. 
While the Microwave Cosmic Background tell us abut the universe at a very early 
stage (500 K years) we cannot receive any earlier information about the 
universe using EM radiation. 
The equivalent gravitational wave background when detected will tells 
information from a fraction of a second after the Big Bang. Only gravitational 
radiation can give us a picture of the universe that early. 

Also information from events like the one just observed eventually would give 
us clues on how gravity and quantum mechanics work together. 
The consequences of this discovery are enormous. 









On Thu, Feb 11, 2016 at 8:22 PM, Russ George <russ.geo...@gmail.com> wrote:


It seems the announcement of showing gravity waves are real is only of value to 
obscure academic discussions. Unless someone here might illuminate us about 
some practical derivatives that might be revealed due to the findings.

Re: [Vo]:LIGO Gravity Waves... So what?

[H Ucar]

The paper of the event
https://dcc.ligo.org/public/0122/P150914/014/LIGO-P150914%3ADetection_of_GW150914.pdf
The event leaves no room for the GW was propagated other than c.

Re: [Vo]:LIGO Gravity Waves... So what?

[Giovanni Santostasi]

Here is the paper:
https://journals.aps.org/prl/pdf/10.1103/PhysRevLett.116.061102

The detection statistics is 5.1 sigma, that corresponds to a p value of
3x10-7 or 1 in 3.5 million that the signal is due to chance. In the paper
they discuss the background noise and what to expect from it.
But what is more astounding is the waveform itself as detected by both
detectors (with a small time shift expected by the fact the waves travel at
the velocity of light).
You have a beautiful time evolution of the signal. In fact you can separate
the detected signal in 3 parts: inspiraling, merger and ring down. They use
relativistic approximate equations (basically an expansion with correction
at many decimal places) to find a model that fits the observed data and
only a merger of black holes with certain masses, orientation towards the
detector, spin and distance fits with high accuracy the data. It is almost
incredible how well the model actually fits the data. Besides some non
Gaussian noise that is always present in the detector the observed
waveforms look like the solution of a GR graduate textbook end of chapter
exercise problem.



On Fri, Feb 12, 2016 at 10:57 AM, David Roberson <dlrober...@aol.com> wrote:

> How can we be confident that this is not just a false alarm?  It seems a
> bit premature to make this announcement since the claimed event is a
> billion light years away from Earth.  Are we to assume that this particular
> event at that great distance is the only one that is showing up on the
> instrument?  What proof is there that millions more are not present at
> closer distances which would be noise to filter out?
>
> Has anyone released information concerning the signal to noise for this
> discovery?  Also, it is a bit difficult to believe that the device can tell
> the actual distance and direction of the black hole collision.
>
> Has this been replicated?  There is much more evidence for cold fusion
> than for this discovery and I have a strong suspicion that it will be
> overturned one day.  Big science making big claims again...I hope it is
> true but it is unlikely.
>
> Dave
>
>
> -Original Message-
> From: Giovanni Santostasi <gsantost...@gmail.com>
> To: vortex-l <vortex-l@eskimo.com>
> Sent: Thu, Feb 11, 2016 9:28 pm
> Subject: Re: [Vo]:LIGO Gravity Waves... So what?
>
> By the way, gravitational waves were the topic of my dissertation so feel
> free to ask any question about the topic. It is very fascinating.
>
> On Thu, Feb 11, 2016 at 9:26 PM, Giovanni Santostasi <
> gsantost...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> It opens a complete different window on the Universe.
>> The analogy that is often given is imagine the cosmic show is like a TV
>> show. Until now we had video but not audio. Finally we turned the audio on.
>> Gravitational waves are a different but complementary way to observe the
>> universe.
>> We already learning things we could not learn before just using EM
>> radiation. For example that there are black holes systems with such large
>> masses.
>> This has consequences in terms of galaxy evolution and how stars were
>> formed.
>> And this is just the beginning.
>> The ultimate price is when we will see the gravitational waves from Big
>> Bang.
>> While the Microwave Cosmic Background tell us abut the universe at a very
>> early stage (500 K years) we cannot receive any earlier information about
>> the universe using EM radiation.
>> The equivalent gravitational wave background when detected will tells
>> information from a fraction of a second after the Big Bang. Only
>> gravitational radiation can give us a picture of the universe that early.
>>
>> Also information from events like the one just observed eventually would
>> give us clues on how gravity and quantum mechanics work together.
>> The consequences of this discovery are enormous.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Thu, Feb 11, 2016 at 8:22 PM, Russ George <russ.geo...@gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> It seems the announcement of showing gravity waves are real is only of
>>> value to obscure academic discussions. Unless someone here might illuminate
>>> us about some practical derivatives that might be revealed due to the
>>> findings.
>>>
>>
>>
>

RE: [Vo]:LIGO Gravity Waves... So what?

[Russ George]

This is becoming a wonderful brainstorming vortex! I wonder what sort of more 
sophisticated gravity telescope might be created and what it might look like, 
in 3 dimensions only please. 

 

From: David Roberson [mailto:dlrober...@aol.com] 
Sent: Friday, February 12, 2016 10:02 AM
To: vortex-l@eskimo.com
Subject: Re: [Vo]:LIGO Gravity Waves... So what?

 

Sounds impressive!  Perhaps I was a bit too skeptic and am warming up to the 
idea.

 

If a collision 1 billion plus light years away produces a 24 dB SNR, then it is 
going to be amazing how clean a collision only 1 million LY's away will 
produce.  I would guess the amplitude would be a million times as large if the 
inverse squared law applies.

 

That ratio of amplitudes would lead me to assume that the generation of 
detectors before this one were far, far less sensitive or that there just 
happened to be no collisions during the sample time at these distances.  Has 
anyone address this issue?

 

Dave

 

 

-Original Message-
From: Giovanni Santostasi <gsantost...@gmail.com <mailto:gsantost...@gmail.com> 
>
To: vortex-l <vortex-l@eskimo.com <mailto:vortex-l@eskimo.com> >
Sent: Fri, Feb 12, 2016 11:42 am
Subject: Re: [Vo]:LIGO Gravity Waves... So what?

There was not much filtering going on because the signal was so evident, 24 
SNR.  


Other searches like looking for GW from rotating neutron stars try to detect 
very weak signals in noise because you can integrate the supposed signal (that 
it is continuous and if existent could last billion of years) over time. 
This particular signal was very loud so the main cleaning was by looking at 
other non gravitational channels. They have dozen of sensors that measure 
seismic activity, temperature and other type of noise and the signal is cleaned 
up using this information. There was some wavelet analysis done to extract the 
possible original waveform but the main test was to compare the detected signal 
with the GR model. 

There is a further cool thing to consider that the sensitivity of the 2 
detectors was slightly different because of the different orientation of the 
huge L of the interferometers. The signal is strongest when the L is 
perpendicular to the direction of motion of the wave. Because of their 
different locations on earth the 2 detectors have slightly different 
sensitivity (or antenna) patterns and this was perfectly evident in the data, 
exactly as GR predicted. 
Yes, the data looks so good that at first many of the LIGO scientists thought 
it was an artificial injection to test their detection algorithms. They had 
false alarms like these before. But it is not the case this time. It is not a 
sudden announcement. The detection happened in September, the conference press 
happened almost 6 months later (LIGO people are super nit picking I can assure 
you).  

 







  
<http://t.sidekickopen35.com/e1t/o/5/f18dQhb0S7ks8dDMPbW2n0x6l2B9gXrN7sKj6v4LR3dW8qSMPY7dKPKPW7fRYjz2zlZNzW5CvrmQ1k1H6H0?si=6537132302139392=956d60b0-fcea-4a82-c9be-98417592f18c>
 

 

On Fri, Feb 12, 2016 at 11:21 AM, David Roberson <dlrober...@aol.com 
<mailto:dlrober...@aol.com> > wrote:

That paper is damaged according to my computer but I found the one that Harry 
posted.

 

Do you have information concerning the filtering that the signal plus noise is 
subjected to before it is interpreted?   Also,  do these events only take place 
at at low rate throughout the universe?  I suppose that is true for super nova 
explosions and this is likely to be just as rare of an event.

 

These teams need to be congratulated if the detections continue to be 
confirmed.  I remain weary of announcements that are produced so quickly.

 

Dave

 

 

-Original Message-
From: Giovanni Santostasi <gsantost...@gmail.com <mailto:gsantost...@gmail.com> 
>
To: vortex-l <vortex-l@eskimo.com <mailto:vortex-l@eskimo.com> >

Sent: Fri, Feb 12, 2016 11:08 am
Subject: Re: [Vo]:LIGO Gravity Waves... So what?

Here is the paper:
https://journals.aps.org/prl/pdf/10.1103/PhysRevLett.116.061102

 

The detection statistics is 5.1 sigma, that corresponds to a p value of 3x10-7 
or 1 in 3.5 million that the signal is due to chance. In the paper they discuss 
the background noise and what to expect from it. 
But what is more astounding is the waveform itself as detected by both 
detectors (with a small time shift expected by the fact the waves travel at the 
velocity of light). 
You have a beautiful time evolution of the signal. In fact you can separate the 
detected signal in 3 parts: inspiraling, merger and ring down. They use 
relativistic approximate equations (basically an expansion with correction at 
many decimal places) to find a model that fits the observed data and only a 
merger of black holes with certain masses, orientation towards the detector, 
spin and distance fits with high accuracy the data. It is almost incredible how 
well the model actua

Re: [Vo]:LIGO Gravity Waves... So what?

[David Roberson]

Sounds impressive!  Perhaps I was a bit too skeptic and am warming up to the 
idea.
 
If a collision 1 billion plus light years away produces a 24 dB SNR, then it is 
going to be amazing how clean a collision only 1 million LY's away will 
produce.  I would guess the amplitude would be a million times as large if the 
inverse squared law applies.
 
That ratio of amplitudes would lead me to assume that the generation of 
detectors before this one were far, far less sensitive or that there just 
happened to be no collisions during the sample time at these distances.  Has 
anyone address this issue?

Dave
 
 
-Original Message-
From: Giovanni Santostasi <gsantost...@gmail.com>
To: vortex-l <vortex-l@eskimo.com>
Sent: Fri, Feb 12, 2016 11:42 am
Subject: Re: [Vo]:LIGO Gravity Waves... So what?



There was not much filtering going on because the signal was so evident, 24 
SNR. 

Other searches like looking for GW from rotating neutron stars try to detect 
very weak signals in noise because you can integrate the supposed signal (that 
it is continuous and if existent could last billion of years) over time. 
This particular signal was very loud so the main cleaning was by looking at 
other non gravitational channels. They have dozen of sensors that measure 
seismic activity, temperature and other type of noise and the signal is cleaned 
up using this information. There was some wavelet analysis done to extract the 
possible original waveform but the main test was to compare the detected signal 
with the GR model. 

There is a further cool thing to consider that the sensitivity of the 2 
detectors was slightly different because of the different orientation of the 
huge L of the interferometers. The signal is strongest when the L is 
perpendicular to the direction of motion of the wave. Because of their 
different locations on earth the 2 detectors have slightly different 
sensitivity (or antenna) patterns and this was perfectly evident in the data, 
exactly as GR predicted. 
Yes, the data looks so good that at first many of the LIGO scientists thought 
it was an artificial injection to test their detection algorithms. They had 
false alarms like these before. But it is not the case this time. It is not a 
sudden announcement. The detection happened in September, the conference press 
happened almost 6 months later (LIGO people are super nit picking I can assure 
you). 











On Fri, Feb 12, 2016 at 11:21 AM, David Roberson <dlrober...@aol.com> wrote:

That paper is damaged according to my computer but I found the one that Harry 
posted.
 
Do you have information concerning the filtering that the signal plus noise is 
subjected to before it is interpreted?   Also,  do these events only take place 
at at low rate throughout the universe?  I suppose that is true for super nova 
explosions and this is likely to be just as rare of an event.
 
These teams need to be congratulated if the detections continue to be 
confirmed.  I remain weary of announcements that are produced so quickly.
 
Dave
 
 
-Original Message-
From: Giovanni Santostasi <gsantost...@gmail.com>
To: vortex-l <vortex-l@eskimo.com>

Sent: Fri, Feb 12, 2016 11:08 am
Subject: Re: [Vo]:LIGO Gravity Waves... So what?



Here is the paper:
https://journals.aps.org/prl/pdf/10.1103/PhysRevLett.116.061102



The detection statistics is 5.1 sigma, that corresponds to a p value of 3x10-7 
or 1 in 3.5 million that the signal is due to chance. In the paper they discuss 
the background noise and what to expect from it. 
But what is more astounding is the waveform itself as detected by both 
detectors (with a small time shift expected by the fact the waves travel at the 
velocity of light). 
You have a beautiful time evolution of the signal. In fact you can separate the 
detected signal in 3 parts: inspiraling, merger and ring down. They use 
relativistic approximate equations (basically an expansion with correction at 
many decimal places) to find a model that fits the observed data and only a 
merger of black holes with certain masses, orientation towards the detector, 
spin and distance fits with high accuracy the data. It is almost incredible how 
well the model actually fits the data. Besides some non Gaussian noise that is 
always present in the detector the observed waveforms look like the solution of 
a GR graduate textbook end of chapter exercise problem. 






On Fri, Feb 12, 2016 at 10:57 AM, David Roberson <dlrober...@aol.com> wrote:

How can we be confident that this is not just a false alarm?  It seems a bit 
premature to make this announcement since the claimed event is a billion light 
years away from Earth.  Are we to assume that this particular event at that 
great distance is the only one that is showing up on the instrument?  What 
proof is there that millions more are not present at closer distances which 
would be noise to filter out?
 
Has anyone released information concerning the

Re: [Vo]:LIGO Gravity Waves... So what?

[David Roberson]

Correction:

The power ratio would be a million to one, but the amplitude would be just 1000 
times greater I believe.
 
Dave
 
 
-Original Message-
From: David Roberson <dlrober...@aol.com>
To: vortex-l <vortex-l@eskimo.com>
Sent: Fri, Feb 12, 2016 1:03 pm
Subject: Re: [Vo]:LIGO Gravity Waves... So what?



Sounds impressive!  Perhaps I was a bit too skeptic and am warming up to the 
idea.
 
If a collision 1 billion plus light years away produces a 24 dB SNR, then it is 
going to be amazing how clean a collision only 1 million LY's away will 
produce.  I would guess the amplitude would be a million times as large if the 
inverse squared law applies.
 
That ratio of amplitudes would lead me to assume that the generation of 
detectors before this one were far, far less sensitive or that there just 
happened to be no collisions during the sample time at these distances.  Has 
anyone address this issue?
 
Dave
 
 
-Original Message-
From: Giovanni Santostasi <gsantost...@gmail.com>
To: vortex-l <vortex-l@eskimo.com>
Sent: Fri, Feb 12, 2016 11:42 am
Subject: Re: [Vo]:LIGO Gravity Waves... So what?



There was not much filtering going on because the signal was so evident, 24 
SNR. 

Other searches like looking for GW from rotating neutron stars try to detect 
very weak signals in noise because you can integrate the supposed signal (that 
it is continuous and if existent could last billion of years) over time. 
This particular signal was very loud so the main cleaning was by looking at 
other non gravitational channels. They have dozen of sensors that measure 
seismic activity, temperature and other type of noise and the signal is cleaned 
up using this information. There was some wavelet analysis done to extract the 
possible original waveform but the main test was to compare the detected signal 
with the GR model. 

There is a further cool thing to consider that the sensitivity of the 2 
detectors was slightly different because of the different orientation of the 
huge L of the interferometers. The signal is strongest when the L is 
perpendicular to the direction of motion of the wave. Because of their 
different locations on earth the 2 detectors have slightly different 
sensitivity (or antenna) patterns and this was perfectly evident in the data, 
exactly as GR predicted. 
Yes, the data looks so good that at first many of the LIGO scientists thought 
it was an artificial injection to test their detection algorithms. They had 
false alarms like these before. But it is not the case this time. It is not a 
sudden announcement. The detection happened in September, the conference press 
happened almost 6 months later (LIGO people are super nit picking I can assure 
you). 











On Fri, Feb 12, 2016 at 11:21 AM, David Roberson <dlrober...@aol.com> wrote:

That paper is damaged according to my computer but I found the one that Harry 
posted.
 
Do you have information concerning the filtering that the signal plus noise is 
subjected to before it is interpreted?   Also,  do these events only take place 
at at low rate throughout the universe?  I suppose that is true for super nova 
explosions and this is likely to be just as rare of an event.
 
These teams need to be congratulated if the detections continue to be 
confirmed.  I remain weary of announcements that are produced so quickly.
 
Dave
 
 
-Original Message-
From: Giovanni Santostasi <gsantost...@gmail.com>
To: vortex-l <vortex-l@eskimo.com>

Sent: Fri, Feb 12, 2016 11:08 am
Subject: Re: [Vo]:LIGO Gravity Waves... So what?



Here is the paper:
https://journals.aps.org/prl/pdf/10.1103/PhysRevLett.116.061102



The detection statistics is 5.1 sigma, that corresponds to a p value of 3x10-7 
or 1 in 3.5 million that the signal is due to chance. In the paper they discuss 
the background noise and what to expect from it. 
But what is more astounding is the waveform itself as detected by both 
detectors (with a small time shift expected by the fact the waves travel at the 
velocity of light). 
You have a beautiful time evolution of the signal. In fact you can separate the 
detected signal in 3 parts: inspiraling, merger and ring down. They use 
relativistic approximate equations (basically an expansion with correction at 
many decimal places) to find a model that fits the observed data and only a 
merger of black holes with certain masses, orientation towards the detector, 
spin and distance fits with high accuracy the data. It is almost incredible how 
well the model actually fits the data. Besides some non Gaussian noise that is 
always present in the detector the observed waveforms look like the solution of 
a GR graduate textbook end of chapter exercise problem. 






On Fri, Feb 12, 2016 at 10:57 AM, David Roberson <dlrober...@aol.com> wrote:

How can we be confident that this is not just a false alarm?  It seems a bit 
premature to make this announcement since the claimed

Re: [Vo]:LIGO Gravity Waves... So what?

[David Roberson]

Interesting.  What exactly do you mean by brighter than expected?  Is that not 
how they determined the distance to the object?  I assume that the magnitude of 
the response would be used to calculate the distance to the event according to 
their model using general relativity.
 
If the model is not yielding an accurate calculation of the magnitude then one 
might question the theory used for that model.  My guess is that the distance 
to the collision might not be as far as they think.  Do you see reason to 
believe that they have the correct distance assumed?  It would seem that a two 
dimensional measuring platform would not be able to accurately determine the 
distance once large distances are anticipated.

Dave
 
 
-Original Message-
From: Giovanni Santostasi <gsantost...@gmail.com>
To: vortex-l <vortex-l@eskimo.com>
Sent: Fri, Feb 12, 2016 1:16 pm
Subject: Re: [Vo]:LIGO Gravity Waves... So what?



Right, amplitude goes with 1/r. 


About old detectors, yes they were simply not sensitivity enough. 
Once they updated LIGO to Advanced LIGO (but not even full power but just 1/3 
of its full potential that over time would be reached) they got a nice 
detection event. It was just an engineering run. 
But this source is actually much brighter than what most people expected 
particularly because of the masses of black holes involved. We had some ideas 
of how likely these events were and they were supposed to be too rare to be 
observed within Hubble time (age of the universe). Evidently we discovered that 
this estimate was not correct. So it was 2 important discoveries in one. 



On Fri, Feb 12, 2016 at 1:01 PM, David Roberson <dlrober...@aol.com> wrote:

Sounds impressive!  Perhaps I was a bit too skeptic and am warming up to the 
idea.
 
If a collision 1 billion plus light years away produces a 24 dB SNR, then it is 
going to be amazing how clean a collision only 1 million LY's away will 
produce.  I would guess the amplitude would be a million times as large if the 
inverse squared law applies.
 
That ratio of amplitudes would lead me to assume that the generation of 
detectors before this one were far, far less sensitive or that there just 
happened to be no collisions during the sample time at these distances.  Has 
anyone address this issue?
 
Dave
 
 
-Original Message-
From: Giovanni Santostasi <gsantost...@gmail.com>
To: vortex-l <vortex-l@eskimo.com>

Sent: Fri, Feb 12, 2016 11:42 am
Subject: Re: [Vo]:LIGO Gravity Waves... So what?



There was not much filtering going on because the signal was so evident, 24 
SNR. 

Other searches like looking for GW from rotating neutron stars try to detect 
very weak signals in noise because you can integrate the supposed signal (that 
it is continuous and if existent could last billion of years) over time. 
This particular signal was very loud so the main cleaning was by looking at 
other non gravitational channels. They have dozen of sensors that measure 
seismic activity, temperature and other type of noise and the signal is cleaned 
up using this information. There was some wavelet analysis done to extract the 
possible original waveform but the main test was to compare the detected signal 
with the GR model. 

There is a further cool thing to consider that the sensitivity of the 2 
detectors was slightly different because of the different orientation of the 
huge L of the interferometers. The signal is strongest when the L is 
perpendicular to the direction of motion of the wave. Because of their 
different locations on earth the 2 detectors have slightly different 
sensitivity (or antenna) patterns and this was perfectly evident in the data, 
exactly as GR predicted. 
Yes, the data looks so good that at first many of the LIGO scientists thought 
it was an artificial injection to test their detection algorithms. They had 
false alarms like these before. But it is not the case this time. It is not a 
sudden announcement. The detection happened in September, the conference press 
happened almost 6 months later (LIGO people are super nit picking I can assure 
you). 











On Fri, Feb 12, 2016 at 11:21 AM, David Roberson <dlrober...@aol.com> wrote:

That paper is damaged according to my computer but I found the one that Harry 
posted.
 
Do you have information concerning the filtering that the signal plus noise is 
subjected to before it is interpreted?   Also,  do these events only take place 
at at low rate throughout the universe?  I suppose that is true for super nova 
explosions and this is likely to be just as rare of an event.
 
These teams need to be congratulated if the detections continue to be 
confirmed.  I remain weary of announcements that are produced so quickly.
 
Dave
 
 
-Original Message-
From: Giovanni Santostasi <gsantost...@gmail.com>
To: vortex-l <vortex-l@eskimo.com>

Sent: Fri, Feb 12, 2016 11:08 am
Subject: Re: [Vo]:LIGO Gravity Waves... So what?



Her

Re: [Vo]:LIGO Gravity Waves... So what?

[Giovanni Santostasi]

Right, amplitude goes with 1/r.

About old detectors, yes they were simply not sensitivity enough.
Once they updated LIGO to Advanced LIGO (but not even full power but just
1/3 of its full potential that over time would be reached) they got a nice
detection event. It was just an engineering run.
But this source is actually much brighter than what most people expected
particularly because of the masses of black holes involved. We had some
ideas of how likely these events were and they were supposed to be too rare
to be observed within Hubble time (age of the universe). Evidently we
discovered that this estimate was not correct. So it was 2 important
discoveries in one.

On Fri, Feb 12, 2016 at 1:01 PM, David Roberson <dlrober...@aol.com> wrote:

> Sounds impressive!  Perhaps I was a bit too skeptic and am warming up to
> the idea.
>
> If a collision 1 billion plus light years away produces a 24 dB SNR, then
> it is going to be amazing how clean a collision only 1 million LY's away
> will produce.  I would guess the amplitude would be a million times as
> large if the inverse squared law applies.
>
> That ratio of amplitudes would lead me to assume that the generation of
> detectors before this one were far, far less sensitive or that there just
> happened to be no collisions during the sample time at these distances.
> Has anyone address this issue?
>
> Dave
>
>
> -Original Message-
> From: Giovanni Santostasi <gsantost...@gmail.com>
> To: vortex-l <vortex-l@eskimo.com>
> Sent: Fri, Feb 12, 2016 11:42 am
> Subject: Re: [Vo]:LIGO Gravity Waves... So what?
>
> There was not much filtering going on because the signal was so evident,
> 24 SNR.
>
> Other searches like looking for GW from rotating neutron stars try to
> detect very weak signals in noise because you can integrate the supposed
> signal (that it is continuous and if existent could last billion of years)
> over time.
> This particular signal was very loud so the main cleaning was by looking
> at other non gravitational channels. They have dozen of sensors that
> measure seismic activity, temperature and other type of noise and the
> signal is cleaned up using this information. There was some wavelet
> analysis done to extract the possible original waveform but the main test
> was to compare the detected signal with the GR model.
>
> There is a further cool thing to consider that the sensitivity of the 2
> detectors was slightly different because of the different orientation of
> the huge L of the interferometers. The signal is strongest when the L is
> perpendicular to the direction of motion of the wave. Because of their
> different locations on earth the 2 detectors have slightly different
> sensitivity (or antenna) patterns and this was perfectly evident in the
> data, exactly as GR predicted.
> Yes, the data looks so good that at first many of the LIGO scientists
> thought it was an artificial injection to test their detection algorithms.
> They had false alarms like these before. But it is not the case this time.
> It is not a sudden announcement. The detection happened in September, the
> conference press happened almost 6 months later (LIGO people are super nit
> picking I can assure you).
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Fri, Feb 12, 2016 at 11:21 AM, David Roberson <dlrober...@aol.com>
> wrote:
>
>> That paper is damaged according to my computer but I found the one that
>> Harry posted.
>>
>> Do you have information concerning the filtering that the signal plus
>> noise is subjected to before it is interpreted?   Also,  do these events
>> only take place at at low rate throughout the universe?  I suppose that is
>> true for super nova explosions and this is likely to be just as rare of an
>> event.
>>
>> These teams need to be congratulated if the detections continue to be
>> confirmed.  I remain weary of announcements that are produced so quickly.
>>
>> Dave
>>
>>
>> -Original Message-
>> From: Giovanni Santostasi <gsantost...@gmail.com>
>> To: vortex-l <vortex-l@eskimo.com>
>> Sent: Fri, Feb 12, 2016 11:08 am
>> Subject: Re: [Vo]:LIGO Gravity Waves... So what?
>>
>> Here is the paper:
>> https://journals.aps.org/prl/pdf/10.1103/PhysRevLett.116.061102
>>
>> The detection statistics is 5.1 sigma, that corresponds to a p value of
>> 3x10-7 or 1 in 3.5 million that the signal is due to chance. In the paper
>> they discuss the background noise and what to expect from it.
>> But what is more astounding is the waveform itself as detected by both
>> detectors (with a small time shift expected by the fact the waves travel at
>> the velocity of light).
>&g

Re: [Vo]:LIGO Gravity Waves... So what?

[Giovanni Santostasi]

The distance is not a free parameter. When you have 2 detectors waveforms
you can fix the masses of the black holes, spins, orbital plane, final mass
of the system, distance (of course within a certain level of precision that
is mentioned in paper). The least constrained parameter is location in the
sky as I explained before. 3 detectors would have determined the position
even better.
The detectors are oriented in a certain way to do some level of
triangulation but there is a detector in Italy (VIRGO, that was not
operating a the time of detection) that would help with the triangulation
(and a 3rd LIGO planned to be constructed in India).



On Fri, Feb 12, 2016 at 1:43 PM, Giovanni Santostasi <gsantost...@gmail.com>
wrote:

> What I meant is that LIGO theorists came up with many different types of
> possible candidate sources based on astrophysical principles, event rate
> estimates and so on.
> While black hole mergers were one of these possible sources the masses
> that were involved in this event were on the high end limits of the range
> of what was considered possible.
>
> So in a way LIGO was lucky that these events are more common than imagined.
> I should rephrase and say black hole mergers in general seem more loud
> than anticipated because large mass systems are more common than previously
> thought.
> This is what I meant.
>
> It is a little bit like what happened with planet detection. The first
> detections were of strange, strange objects that were very close to the
> star and very large, hot Jupiters. The first attempts to look for
> signatures of planets around stars were not supposed to see anything
> because they were not sensitive enough to see solar system type of planets.
> They tried anyway and hold and behold they saw planets but of a strange
> kind.
> Nature always surprises us and it is worth to take a look anyway.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Fri, Feb 12, 2016 at 1:32 PM, David Roberson <dlrober...@aol.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Interesting.  What exactly do you mean by brighter than expected?  Is
>> that not how they determined the distance to the object?  I assume that the
>> magnitude of the response would be used to calculate the distance to the
>> event according to their model using general relativity.
>>
>> If the model is not yielding an accurate calculation of the magnitude
>> then one might question the theory used for that model.  My guess is that
>> the distance to the collision might not be as far as they think.  Do you
>> see reason to believe that they have the correct distance assumed?  It
>> would seem that a two dimensional measuring platform would not be able to
>> accurately determine the distance once large distances are anticipated.
>>
>> Dave
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-
>> From: Giovanni Santostasi <gsantost...@gmail.com>
>> To: vortex-l <vortex-l@eskimo.com>
>> Sent: Fri, Feb 12, 2016 1:16 pm
>> Subject: Re: [Vo]:LIGO Gravity Waves... So what?
>>
>> Right, amplitude goes with 1/r.
>>
>> About old detectors, yes they were simply not sensitivity enough.
>> Once they updated LIGO to Advanced LIGO (but not even full power but just
>> 1/3 of its full potential that over time would be reached) they got a nice
>> detection event. It was just an engineering run.
>> But this source is actually much brighter than what most people expected
>> particularly because of the masses of black holes involved. We had some
>> ideas of how likely these events were and they were supposed to be too rare
>> to be observed within Hubble time (age of the universe). Evidently we
>> discovered that this estimate was not correct. So it was 2 important
>> discoveries in one.
>>
>> On Fri, Feb 12, 2016 at 1:01 PM, David Roberson <dlrober...@aol.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Sounds impressive!  Perhaps I was a bit too skeptic and am warming up to
>>> the idea.
>>>
>>> If a collision 1 billion plus light years away produces a 24 dB SNR,
>>> then it is going to be amazing how clean a collision only 1 million LY's
>>> away will produce.  I would guess the amplitude would be a million times as
>>> large if the inverse squared law applies.
>>>
>>> That ratio of amplitudes would lead me to assume that the generation of
>>> detectors before this one were far, far less sensitive or that there just
>>> happened to be no collisions during the sample time at these distances.
>>> Has anyone address this issue?
>>>
>>> Dave
>>>
>>>
>>> -Original Message-
>>> From: Giovanni Santostasi <gsantost...@gmail.com>

Re: [Vo]:LIGO Gravity Waves... So what?

[Giovanni Santostasi]

What I meant is that LIGO theorists came up with many different types of
possible candidate sources based on astrophysical principles, event rate
estimates and so on.
While black hole mergers were one of these possible sources the masses that
were involved in this event were on the high end limits of the range of
what was considered possible.

So in a way LIGO was lucky that these events are more common than imagined.
I should rephrase and say black hole mergers in general seem more loud than
anticipated because large mass systems are more common than previously
thought.
This is what I meant.

It is a little bit like what happened with planet detection. The first
detections were of strange, strange objects that were very close to the
star and very large, hot Jupiters. The first attempts to look for
signatures of planets around stars were not supposed to see anything
because they were not sensitive enough to see solar system type of planets.
They tried anyway and hold and behold they saw planets but of a strange
kind.
Nature always surprises us and it is worth to take a look anyway.







On Fri, Feb 12, 2016 at 1:32 PM, David Roberson <dlrober...@aol.com> wrote:

> Interesting.  What exactly do you mean by brighter than expected?  Is that
> not how they determined the distance to the object?  I assume that the
> magnitude of the response would be used to calculate the distance to the
> event according to their model using general relativity.
>
> If the model is not yielding an accurate calculation of the magnitude then
> one might question the theory used for that model.  My guess is that the
> distance to the collision might not be as far as they think.  Do you see
> reason to believe that they have the correct distance assumed?  It would
> seem that a two dimensional measuring platform would not be able to
> accurately determine the distance once large distances are anticipated.
>
> Dave
>
>
> -Original Message-
> From: Giovanni Santostasi <gsantost...@gmail.com>
> To: vortex-l <vortex-l@eskimo.com>
> Sent: Fri, Feb 12, 2016 1:16 pm
> Subject: Re: [Vo]:LIGO Gravity Waves... So what?
>
> Right, amplitude goes with 1/r.
>
> About old detectors, yes they were simply not sensitivity enough.
> Once they updated LIGO to Advanced LIGO (but not even full power but just
> 1/3 of its full potential that over time would be reached) they got a nice
> detection event. It was just an engineering run.
> But this source is actually much brighter than what most people expected
> particularly because of the masses of black holes involved. We had some
> ideas of how likely these events were and they were supposed to be too rare
> to be observed within Hubble time (age of the universe). Evidently we
> discovered that this estimate was not correct. So it was 2 important
> discoveries in one.
>
> On Fri, Feb 12, 2016 at 1:01 PM, David Roberson <dlrober...@aol.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Sounds impressive!  Perhaps I was a bit too skeptic and am warming up to
>> the idea.
>>
>> If a collision 1 billion plus light years away produces a 24 dB SNR, then
>> it is going to be amazing how clean a collision only 1 million LY's away
>> will produce.  I would guess the amplitude would be a million times as
>> large if the inverse squared law applies.
>>
>> That ratio of amplitudes would lead me to assume that the generation of
>> detectors before this one were far, far less sensitive or that there just
>> happened to be no collisions during the sample time at these distances.
>> Has anyone address this issue?
>>
>> Dave
>>
>>
>> -Original Message-
>> From: Giovanni Santostasi <gsantost...@gmail.com>
>> To: vortex-l <vortex-l@eskimo.com>
>> Sent: Fri, Feb 12, 2016 11:42 am
>> Subject: Re: [Vo]:LIGO Gravity Waves... So what?
>>
>> There was not much filtering going on because the signal was so evident,
>> 24 SNR.
>>
>> Other searches like looking for GW from rotating neutron stars try to
>> detect very weak signals in noise because you can integrate the supposed
>> signal (that it is continuous and if existent could last billion of years)
>> over time.
>> This particular signal was very loud so the main cleaning was by looking
>> at other non gravitational channels. They have dozen of sensors that
>> measure seismic activity, temperature and other type of noise and the
>> signal is cleaned up using this information. There was some wavelet
>> analysis done to extract the possible original waveform but the main test
>> was to compare the detected signal with the GR model.
>>
>> There is a further cool thing to consider that the sensitivity of the 2
>> detectors w

Re: [Vo]:LIGO Gravity Waves... So what?

[Terry Blanton]

Surfing the universe on gravity waves!

Re: [Vo]:LIGO Gravity Waves... So what?

[David Roberson]

Don't they measure the distance to the black hole pair based upon the magnitude 
of the detector response?  What if the actual response were 10 times greater 
than calculated using general relativity?  Of course what I am questioning 
assumes that an error exists in the model which is not proven thus far.
 
 I noticed that the authors of the paper show a relatively constant oscillation 
frequency and radiation response level ahead of the collision.  How long would 
that period last?  The magnitude seems to fall off relatively slowly in time so 
I have to wonder why this effect would not be present for other pairs of black 
holes which should act as background noise.

Does it not seem much more likely for two black holes to have a very near miss 
instead of actually colliding?  I would think that it is seldom possible for 
two black holes to approach each other slowly enough for a trapping event.  
Most of the time I would assume that the relative velocity between the holes 
was much too high for this to occur.  If true, the radiation from a non 
colliding pair that is nearby should be the source of a very large pulse of 
gravitational wave.  Perhaps that is one of the signals that should be searched 
for?  Also, these near misses would be a strong source of background noise that 
must be rejected in order to find the specific and rare signals they are 
seeking.

Dave
 
 
-Original Message-
From: Giovanni Santostasi <gsantost...@gmail.com>
To: vortex-l <vortex-l@eskimo.com>
Sent: Fri, Feb 12, 2016 1:49 pm
Subject: Re: [Vo]:LIGO Gravity Waves... So what?



The distance is not a free parameter. When you have 2 detectors waveforms you 
can fix the masses of the black holes, spins, orbital plane, final mass of the 
system, distance (of course within a certain level of precision that is 
mentioned in paper). The least constrained parameter is location in the sky as 
I explained before. 3 detectors would have determined the position even better. 
The detectors are oriented in a certain way to do some level of triangulation 
but there is a detector in Italy (VIRGO, that was not operating a the time of 
detection) that would help with the triangulation (and a 3rd LIGO planned to be 
constructed in India). 







On Fri, Feb 12, 2016 at 1:43 PM, Giovanni Santostasi <gsantost...@gmail.com> 
wrote:

What I meant is that LIGO theorists came up with many different types of 
possible candidate sources based on astrophysical principles, event rate 
estimates and so on. 
While black hole mergers were one of these possible sources the masses that 
were involved in this event were on the high end limits of the range of what 
was considered possible. 

So in a way LIGO was lucky that these events are more common than imagined.
I should rephrase and say black hole mergers in general seem more loud than 
anticipated because large mass systems are more common than previously thought. 
This is what I meant. 

It is a little bit like what happened with planet detection. The first 
detections were of strange, strange objects that were very close to the star 
and very large, hot Jupiters. The first attempts to look for signatures of 
planets around stars were not supposed to see anything because they were not 
sensitive enough to see solar system type of planets. They tried anyway and 
hold and behold they saw planets but of a strange kind. 
Nature always surprises us and it is worth to take a look anyway. 
















On Fri, Feb 12, 2016 at 1:32 PM, David Roberson <dlrober...@aol.com> wrote:

Interesting.  What exactly do you mean by brighter than expected?  Is that not 
how they determined the distance to the object?  I assume that the magnitude of 
the response would be used to calculate the distance to the event according to 
their model using general relativity.
 
If the model is not yielding an accurate calculation of the magnitude then one 
might question the theory used for that model.  My guess is that the distance 
to the collision might not be as far as they think.  Do you see reason to 
believe that they have the correct distance assumed?  It would seem that a two 
dimensional measuring platform would not be able to accurately determine the 
distance once large distances are anticipated.
 
Dave
 
 
-Original Message-
From: Giovanni Santostasi <gsantost...@gmail.com>
To: vortex-l <vortex-l@eskimo.com>

Sent: Fri, Feb 12, 2016 1:16 pm
Subject: Re: [Vo]:LIGO Gravity Waves... So what?



Right, amplitude goes with 1/r. 


About old detectors, yes they were simply not sensitivity enough. 
Once they updated LIGO to Advanced LIGO (but not even full power but just 1/3 
of its full potential that over time would be reached) they got a nice 
detection event. It was just an engineering run. 
But this source is actually much brighter than what most people expected 
particularly because of the masses of black holes involved. We had some ideas 
of how likely these events w

Re: [Vo]:LIGO Gravity Waves... So what?

[Rich Murray]

maybe the best account and video of first LIGO gravity wave 2015.09.14: The
New Yorker: Rich Murray 2016.02.11
http://rmforall.blogspot.com/2016/02/maybe-best-account-and-video-of-first.html


http://www.kurzweilai.net/we-have-detected-gravitational-waves-ligo-scientists

1:38:33 hour NSF event with many remarkable videos


https://dcc.ligo.org/public/0122/P150914/014/LIGO-P150914%3ADetection_of_GW150914.pdf

free full text


[116] LIGO Open Science Center (LOSC),

https://losc.ligo.org/events/GW150914/

details in Data release for event GW150914



http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/gravitational-waves-exist-heres-how-scientists-finally-found-them

[ about 1 minute video, time slowed down about 100X --
the two black holes spiral around each other, making 11 half-turns before
merging suddenly --
the black holes are invisible, so we see their twisted space-time showing
highly distorted swirling views of their far away galactic background --
this happened 1.3 billion years away ( 1.3 billion years ago ) --
our nearest neighbor galaxy Andromeda is about 2.2 million lightyears away
( 2.2 million years old from us ) --
our galaxy is about 0.1 million lightyears wide... ]

TODAY 10:30 AM
Gravitational Waves Exist: The Inside Story of How Scientists Finally Found
Them
BY NICOLA TWILLEY

"Just over a billion years ago, many millions of galaxies from here, a pair
of black holes collided.
They had been circling each other for aeons, in a sort of mating dance,
gathering pace with each orbit, hurtling closer and closer.
By the time they were a few hundred miles apart, they were whipping around
at nearly the speed of light, releasing great shudders of gravitational
energy.
Space and time became distorted, like water at a rolling boil.
In the fraction of a second that it took for the black holes to finally
merge, they radiated a hundred times more energy than all the stars in the
universe combined. They formed a new black hole, sixty-two times as heavy
as our sun and almost as wide across as the state of Maine.
As it smoothed itself out, assuming the shape of a slightly flattened
sphere, a few last quivers of energy escaped.
Then space and time became silent again."

[ Another source says they reached a top speed of half the speed of light
as they merged... ]

"On  Sunday, September 13th, Effler spent the day at the Livingston site
with a colleague, finishing a battery of last-minute tests.
“We yelled, we vibrated things with shakers, we tapped on things, we
introduced magnetic radiation, we did all kinds of things,” she said. “And,
of course, everything was taking longer than it was supposed to.”
At four in the morning, with one test still left to do — a simulation of a
truck driver hitting his brakes nearby — they decided to pack it in.
They drove home, leaving the instrument to gather data in peace.
The signal arrived not long after, at 4:50 A.M. local time, passing through
the two detectors within seven milliseconds of each other.
[ In Louisiana and in Oregon, 1,865 miles apart ]
It was four days before the start of Advanced LIGO’s first official run."

"Since the September 14th detection, LIGO has continued to observe
candidate signals, although none are quite as dramatic as the first event.
“The reason we are making all this fuss is because of the big guy,” Weiss
said. “But we’re very happy that there are other, smaller ones, because it
says this is not some unique, crazy, cuckoo effect.”


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


"These sites are separated by 3,002 kilometers (1,865 miles).
Since gravitational waves are expected to travel at the speed of light,
this distance corresponds to a difference in gravitational wave arrival
times of up to ten milliseconds."

"After an equivalent of approximately 75 trips down the 4 km length to the
far mirrors and back again, the two separate beams leave the arms and
recombine at the beam splitter."

"Based on current models of astronomical events, and the predictions of the
general theory of relativity, gravitational waves that originate tens of
millions of light years from Earth are expected to distort the 4 kilometer
mirror spacing by about 10E−18 m, less than one-thousandth the charge
diameter of a proton. Equivalently, this is a relative change in distance
of approximately one part in 10E 21.
A typical event which might cause a detection event would be the late stage
inspiral and merger of two 10 solar mass black holes, not necessarily
located in the Milky Way galaxy, which is expected to result in a very
specific sequence of signals often summarized by the slogan chirp, burst,
quasi-normal mode ringing, exponential decay."


http://www.nature.com/news/einstein-s-gravitational-waves-found-at-last-1.19361

"One black hole was about 36 times the mass of the Sun, and the other was
about 29 solar masses.
As they spiraled inexorably into one another, they merged into a single,
more-massive gravitational sink in space-time that weighed 62 solar masses,
the LIGO team 

Re: [Vo]:LIGO Gravity Waves... So what?

[H Ucar]

Energy equivalent of three sun mass is dissipated as GW in 1/10 second and this 
energy appears not well absorbed by the universe. This is interesting from 
conservation of energy. If dissipation takes too much time there would be 
always a GW background noise which correspond to a energy density. Kind of dark 
energy. More realistic than ZPE. It wouldn't be surprised if somebody fill a 
patent to convert it to usable one. 

[Vo]:LIGO Gravity Waves... So what?

[Russ George]

It seems the announcement of showing gravity waves are real is only of value
to obscure academic discussions. Unless someone here might illuminate us
about some practical derivatives that might be revealed due to the findings.

Re: [Vo]:LIGO Gravity Waves... So what?

[Eric Walker]

On Thu, Feb 11, 2016 at 8:27 PM, Giovanni Santostasi 
wrote:

By the way, gravitational waves were the topic of my dissertation so feel
> free to ask any question about the topic. It is very fascinating.
>

Given enough time, development and resources, will it be possible to build
one or more apparatuses that will resolve the layout of the surrounding
cosmos in three (and four) dimensions?

What is the smallest body that can be detected, in theory and in practice?

Eric

Re: [Vo]:LIGO Gravity Waves... So what?

[Giovanni Santostasi]

By the way, gravitational waves were the topic of my dissertation so feel
free to ask any question about the topic. It is very fascinating.

On Thu, Feb 11, 2016 at 9:26 PM, Giovanni Santostasi 
wrote:

> It opens a complete different window on the Universe.
> The analogy that is often given is imagine the cosmic show is like a TV
> show. Until now we had video but not audio. Finally we turned the audio on.
> Gravitational waves are a different but complementary way to observe the
> universe.
> We already learning things we could not learn before just using EM
> radiation. For example that there are black holes systems with such large
> masses.
> This has consequences in terms of galaxy evolution and how stars were
> formed.
> And this is just the beginning.
> The ultimate price is when we will see the gravitational waves from Big
> Bang.
> While the Microwave Cosmic Background tell us abut the universe at a very
> early stage (500 K years) we cannot receive any earlier information about
> the universe using EM radiation.
> The equivalent gravitational wave background when detected will tells
> information from a fraction of a second after the Big Bang. Only
> gravitational radiation can give us a picture of the universe that early.
>
> Also information from events like the one just observed eventually would
> give us clues on how gravity and quantum mechanics work together.
> The consequences of this discovery are enormous.
>
>
>
>
>
> On Thu, Feb 11, 2016 at 8:22 PM, Russ George 
> wrote:
>
>> It seems the announcement of showing gravity waves are real is only of
>> value to obscure academic discussions. Unless someone here might illuminate
>> us about some practical derivatives that might be revealed due to the
>> findings.
>>
>
>

Re: [Vo]:LIGO Gravity Waves... So what?

[Giovanni Santostasi]

It opens a complete different window on the Universe.
The analogy that is often given is imagine the cosmic show is like a TV
show. Until now we had video but not audio. Finally we turned the audio on.
Gravitational waves are a different but complementary way to observe the
universe.
We already learning things we could not learn before just using EM
radiation. For example that there are black holes systems with such large
masses.
This has consequences in terms of galaxy evolution and how stars were
formed.
And this is just the beginning.
The ultimate price is when we will see the gravitational waves from Big
Bang.
While the Microwave Cosmic Background tell us abut the universe at a very
early stage (500 K years) we cannot receive any earlier information about
the universe using EM radiation.
The equivalent gravitational wave background when detected will tells
information from a fraction of a second after the Big Bang. Only
gravitational radiation can give us a picture of the universe that early.

Also information from events like the one just observed eventually would
give us clues on how gravity and quantum mechanics work together.
The consequences of this discovery are enormous.





On Thu, Feb 11, 2016 at 8:22 PM, Russ George  wrote:

> It seems the announcement of showing gravity waves are real is only of
> value to obscure academic discussions. Unless someone here might illuminate
> us about some practical derivatives that might be revealed due to the
> findings.
>

Re: [Vo]:LIGO Gravity Waves... So what?

[H LV]

In another report I heard black hole collisions are thought to occur only
once in a million years.
Is that true?

Also how can they know for certain that this not a seismic event? After all
there is a great deal we do not know about the Earth's interior.

Harry

On Thu, Feb 11, 2016 at 9:27 PM, Giovanni Santostasi 
wrote:

> By the way, gravitational waves were the topic of my dissertation so feel
> free to ask any question about the topic. It is very fascinating.
>
> On Thu, Feb 11, 2016 at 9:26 PM, Giovanni Santostasi <
> gsantost...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> It opens a complete different window on the Universe.
>> The analogy that is often given is imagine the cosmic show is like a TV
>> show. Until now we had video but not audio. Finally we turned the audio on.
>> Gravitational waves are a different but complementary way to observe the
>> universe.
>> We already learning things we could not learn before just using EM
>> radiation. For example that there are black holes systems with such large
>> masses.
>> This has consequences in terms of galaxy evolution and how stars were
>> formed.
>> And this is just the beginning.
>> The ultimate price is when we will see the gravitational waves from Big
>> Bang.
>> While the Microwave Cosmic Background tell us abut the universe at a very
>> early stage (500 K years) we cannot receive any earlier information about
>> the universe using EM radiation.
>> The equivalent gravitational wave background when detected will tells
>> information from a fraction of a second after the Big Bang. Only
>> gravitational radiation can give us a picture of the universe that early.
>>
>> Also information from events like the one just observed eventually would
>> give us clues on how gravity and quantum mechanics work together.
>> The consequences of this discovery are enormous.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Thu, Feb 11, 2016 at 8:22 PM, Russ George 
>> wrote:
>>
>>> It seems the announcement of showing gravity waves are real is only of
>>> value to obscure academic discussions. Unless someone here might illuminate
>>> us about some practical derivatives that might be revealed due to the
>>> findings.
>>>
>>
>>
>

Re: [Vo]:LIGO Gravity Waves... So what?

[Ludwik Kowalski]

Like Russ George (see below), I see no connection between our CMNS field and 
gravity waves.

Ludwik
=
On Feb 11, 2016, at 9:26 PM, Giovanni Santostasi wrote:

> It opens a complete different window on the Universe. 
> The analogy that is often given is imagine the cosmic show is like a TV show. 
> Until now we had video but not audio. Finally we turned the audio on. 
> Gravitational waves are a different but complementary way to observe the 
> universe. 
> We already learning things we could not learn before just using EM radiation. 
> For example that there are black holes systems with such large masses. 
> This has consequences in terms of galaxy evolution and how stars were formed. 
> And this is just the beginning. 
> The ultimate price is when we will see the gravitational waves from Big Bang. 
> While the Microwave Cosmic Background tell us abut the universe at a very 
> early stage (500 K years) we cannot receive any earlier information about the 
> universe using EM radiation. 
> The equivalent gravitational wave background when detected will tells 
> information from a fraction of a second after the Big Bang. Only 
> gravitational radiation can give us a picture of the universe that early. 
> 
> Also information from events like the one just observed eventually would give 
> us clues on how gravity and quantum mechanics work together. 
> The consequences of this discovery are enormous. 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On Thu, Feb 11, 2016 at 8:22 PM, Russ George  wrote:
> It seems the announcement of showing gravity waves are real is only of value 
> to obscure academic discussions. Unless someone here might illuminate us 
> about some practical derivatives that might be revealed due to the findings.
> 
>