(S) LIGO Press Conference at 9 AM

1,400 Views | 11 Replies | Last: 6 yr ago by Star Wars Memes Only
Star Wars Memes Only
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In case anyone is interested LIGO is doing a press conference today at 9. Rumor has it that they detected a collision between two neutron stars and confirmed it optically. This would basically be the final confirmation of gravitational waves in case there were any lingering doubts.

Gravitational waves are important for two reasons: they are a prediction of Einstein's general relativity and their detection offers further evidence for its veracity, and because they are a new way of detecting the universe. An analogy for the second point might be that up until we found gravitational waves we were deaf to the universe: all we were doing was looking at It. Now we can listen to It too.

The press conference can be watched here:

Eliminatus
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AG
Awesome stuff. Thanks.

TexAgs91
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AG

I identify as Ultra-MAGA
Star Wars Memes Only
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Cool, press conference said and elaborated on pretty much what was said above.
wbt5845
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AG
Pretty amazing. Two stars, both about the mass of our sun, but the size of Mnahatten, collide and the fire ball is about the diameter of Neptune's orbit.

If that had been in our own galaxy, I'm guessing that would be visible in our sky during the day?
Sapper Redux
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It would be thousands of times brighter than our sun. If the gamma rays didn't kill you before you saw it...
Star Wars Memes Only
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Here are all the LIGO papers on this event:

TexAgs91
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AG
So we've learned a bit from this one?
I identify as Ultra-MAGA
Sapper Redux
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AstroAg17 said:

Source? How do you figure?


I misread. I thought he said in our solar system. If it were in our galaxy the gamma rays could theoretically still be a problem if we were in the wrong spot.
Star Wars Memes Only
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TexAgs91 said:

So we've learned a bit from this one?


My purpose in posting that list was hopefully to show the sheer amount of work that goes into a discovery. This is a small fraction of the total papers published, too. This is just from LIGO itself.
Sapper Redux
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Sounds like this discovery required a lot of coordination across a lot of sites. It's very impressive. Historians can barely work in pairs.
Star Wars Memes Only
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Matt Strassler on The Significance of Yesterday's Gravitational Wave.
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