Kevin's Watch

Posted: **Thu Mar 12, 2015 11:46 am**

I watched this program last night, detaileing the hunt for the 'primiordial' gravitational waves left over from the Big-Bang within the cosmic microwave background, which was described as 'the smoking gun' which would confirm Guth and Linde's inflation hypothesis [first proposed thirty years ago] as being correct. This in turn would push our knowledge of what happened at the start of the Universe to all but T=0 [in fact about T=10 {-35} sec I think].

In the program we were told the story leading up to the annoucement by The Kovac team [of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics] that they could confirm the observation of these primordial gravitational waves in the data gathered by their telescope situated at the South Pole. This they achieved by detection of a polarisation of light in deep space that could [they believed] only be accounted for by the passage of gravitational waves across the field. The absence of any super heavy objects in the region under study could eliminate waves produced by other scources. The one 'fly in the ointment' that could account for the light's polarisation was however that of 'cosmic dust', but examination of the available data was heavily suggestive that the contribution component from the dust would be nowhere near big enough to explain the amount of wave disturbance that the polarisation implied. On the strength of this belief, and with Guth's agreement, Kovak and team called a press conference and announced their ground-breaking discovery.

Alas however, it appears they were premature. The initial revelation was surrounded by a fanfare of press coverage and congratulations for what would, no doubt, have been a Nobel Prize winning achievement [that many had labled as 'a wild goose chase'] - but very soon the rot began to set in. A French based team whose specialist area was the very cosmic dust that Kovac et al had disregarded, launched a bomb-shell. They reported that the degree of polarisation expected within the area of sky studied was much larger than Kovac's team had assumed - and potentially enough to account for all of the polarisation seen. In an attempt to 'rescue the discovery' and absolutely in the spirit in which science must be persued, the teams decided to colaborate together in deciding to what portion of the polarisation could be attributable to the cosmic dust. The results of this, while not entierly damning are pretty disheartening ones for the Kovac team. It was announced that in all probability around 75% of the total polarisation was attributable to the dust - with 25% to the primordial gravitational waves. But crucially it had to be conceeded that it was still in the frame that all 100% of the polarisation might be down to the dust, so it was effectively gack to square one. The wild-goose-chase was back on and the scientists were philosophical about it. "This is the cruel world of experimental science," said Kovac, "This is how it has to be."

So Guth's Inflationary Hypothesis remains just that, the best hypothesis of the bunch no doubt [and there are many others], but still a hypothesis never-the -less. The tale is a salutary one that I think, illustrates the dangers of the modern trend for making anouncements of discoveries rather than just presenting them in academic papers as was the case in years gone by. The progression of scientific knowledge is by no means a smooth and untroubled one; nature does not reveal her secrets without a fight - and very often the fight is between the very competing groups of investigators themselves as they vie for the plaudits of recognition and yes, wealth that 'making the big discovery' can bring.

Posted: **Thu Mar 12, 2015 4:37 pm**

peter (USSM) wrote:and very often the fight is between the very competing groups of investigators themselves as they vie for the plaudits of recognition and yes, wealth that 'making the big discovery' can bring.

A big part of this, though, is in the business of science publications/communication.
The BEST science/study is one factor for publication---but the "revolutionary" or "excitement" factor is given equal or more weight.
Very few people doing real science are going to get rich off the work---
No, they take the risks, push the big thing, cuz they have to publish just to keep their jobs. They're more like the worker-bee who puts up with the total psychopathy of his/her boss cuz he/she has a family to support than they are like the greedy scam-master that is Dr. "Should be in Jail for Massive-Damn-Fraud" Oz.

Heh...and it's the audience that pay the price.
I was so psyched for gravitational waves.

Posted: **Fri Mar 13, 2015 10:23 am**

Some musings;

I imagine the mass of the Universe is exactly as it always has been since T+ the smallest nth of time you can get, because there is a thing called 'the conservation of mass' that I was taught in 'A' level physics [all those years ago]. On the basis of this my next question may be completely irrational, but saying a big gravitational inducing mass were to instantly dissapear from the Universe - not to be spread out, but to actually cease to exist - how would the loss of that masses gravitational effect be transmitted to the rest of the matter in the Universe? Would the effect be instantaneous [therefor breaching the 'speed of light' wall] or would the effect spread at the speed of light and if so what would [does] this tell us about the nature of gravity.

In those diagrams where you see a 'grid' of space-time being distorted by a planet like round ball [like a poole ball sitting on a thin sheet of rubber] ultimately the sides of the distortion are vertical. What is happening at this point; is there a finite maximum value to gravity or in the case of an infinite mass is the associated gravity infinite as well? And if space-time can be stretched and bent, can it be 'torn' [can't think the results of this would be good news for the Universe if the answer is yes].

Finally 'the primordial gravitational waves' - what is their scource? presumably they result from the [pre-particulate] mass of the earliest Universe, that are still radiating out from their original scource point [the big-bang itself]. I guess the clue to answering one of the above questions is in the name - gravitational waves. If they are waves then the must travel at the speed of light mustn't they - and they must intefere as well [a point I think we have raised before]. All of which points to their being [in most likelyhood] one and the same with the rest of the electromagnetic spectrum and indicates that a GUT is [again in all likelyhood] absolutely 'out there' for the finding. [And as Deutsch said, when it is so it will overturn both the relativity and quantum theories like so much Newtonian chaff.]

Posted: **Fri Mar 13, 2015 5:41 pm**

Gravity is nothing more than bent spacetime so a ripple in the very fabric of reality itself might not necessarily be limited to velocities of c or less. It isn't an object with even the smallest amount of relativistic mass so the question of restraints is moot.

One problem that black holes cause that most people don't consider is what they do to the universe if thought of as a topological space. Consider the Earth. It is relatively spherical (I forget the exact degree of eccentricity but the planet clearly isn't a perfect sphere) and is a "closed" space--from any point on its surface you can get to any other point. Also, if you have a function that describes points on the surface (such as temperature) then no value can attain infinite value (I can show you the proof of this but a) it will be boring and b) I don't have that topology book with me). Imagine, then, if we took the South Pole and "erased" it--you can get as close to the South Pole as you want to but you can always get a little closer. In this case, if the temperature kept dropping the closer you got to the Pole then there is no limit to how cold it could get--eventually all the molecules in your body would stop their normal thermodynamic vibrations and would have only their quantum vibrations, thus making them all overlap, and I don't want to think about what that would be like.
This is how it is for black holes. You can get as close to the actual point of singularity as you want to but you can always get a little closer, at which point space is stretched more, time moves more slowly, and your own mass keeps increasing but you will never actually get to the singularity. In that regard, it harkens back to Zeno's Paradox (move halfway, move halfway again, then again, etc and you can never cross the room).

What I suspect--suspect because I doubt I could ever prove it--is that black holes wind up acting as "doorways" to the higher dimensions which make up our universe, the "directions" or "spaces" responsible for quantum entangling and its apparent supraluminal effects. Clearly, that is a one-way door and the door is too small for physical matter to enter, at least for objects above that mysterious quantum/not-quantum boundary.

Still....fascinating stuff.

Posted: **Fri Mar 13, 2015 6:27 pm**

Heh...a lot of that the answers depend on things that we don't know yet.
MUST mass be conserved if the system isn't closed? I know you can theoretically gain mass/energy in an open system...but I'm not sure it necessarily follows that you can also destroy it.
I'm pretty sure [and you arrived at the same answer later] that most of the extant theories say gravitational waves will propagate at light speed.

I think one of the significant problems between Rel. and Quantum exists because it results in infinite gravitation...but the universe can't really exist if such a thing is true.

My impression is that the initial gravitational waves arise because at the beginning space itself...whatever it is "made" of...inflated far in excess of the speed of light. And gravity and space are intimately connected.

When it comes to GUT's/TOE's, I often wonder if the form the statements/questions is a real problem or just an artifact of manner of speaking.
Because it seems to me they usually say "We've got most everything else nearly/mostly figured out, but gravity is problematic."
Yet: I THINK gravity is the only thing that affects everything...and much of it seems a one-way street. Gravity affects light...light does not affect gravity. [and I think most of it happens through the intermediary of spacetime...whatever it is made of...cuz I think gravity doesn't pull on photons, it curves the spacetime through which the photons are passing.]
Anyway, given that, wouldn't it be more accurate to say a whole bunch of stuff is unknown cuz they don't understand the one thing we know of that influences everything there is?

Some say that part of the problem is that gravity doesn't actually exist as a force. I don't know much of anything, really, about how those things work...but in the smattering I've seen, [and small part of that smattering I've understood] they appear to create more problems than they solve. Which doesn't mean wrong, of course. Does mean we've got to go back and re-do a bunch of our assignments, though.

I don't know if space can be torn. Maybe it can, but to do so requires infinite stretch...something that can be approached but never reached, requiring infinite mass/energy to do it? Maybe stretching is not all it does...maybe while it's stretching, it's oozing out some new space "behind" it when the tension gets too high? Maybe it's a reverse Rope Trick...instead of climbing up an anchorless rope and disappearing into nowhere, it pulls more space out of nowhere when it approaches maximum? [it can't be doing it under low-ish stretch levels, I don't think...I think there would be some sign/trace/noticeable phenomenon around moving massive bodies]

Posted: **Sat Mar 14, 2015 9:14 am**

Good replies!

Is a 'gravity wave' the same as a 'curve in space time' ie just a smaller scale bending of the same thing [think waves upon the surface of the 'globe-bent' curve of the surface waters of the world] or a different 'entity' described with a different [and unconected] mathematical construction.

Doesn't the recent confirmation of the existance of the Higgs Boson [did that happen or am I imagining it] pull gravity firmly into the 'relativistic world'?

Posted: **Sat Mar 14, 2015 4:39 pm**

peter (USSM) wrote:Good replies!

Is a 'gravity wave' the same as a 'curve in space time' ie just a smaller scale bending of the same thing [think waves upon the surface of the 'globe-bent' curve of the surface waters of the world] or a different 'entity' described with a different [and unconected] mathematical construction.

Doesn't the recent confirmation of the existance of the Higgs Boson [did that happen or am I imagining it] pull gravity firmly into the 'relativistic world'?

It is connected, I believe...I think the math of gravity theories that work/match observed gravity phenomena imply/predicts gravity waves. That's why peeps were looking for them. [though...and this is may be just an artifact of how I think about it, not sure if it has real grounds...I think the wave might be more akin to sound/compression waves than transverse waves]

But no, the Higgs didn't do anything for the gravity problem. The Higg's was predicted by the Standard Model---but the standard model doesn't explain gravity so far. [and seems like it simply cannot do so]. SOME have said that since the Higgs connects mass, and mass connects gravity they must be deeply related, even if no one has figured out how just yet.
I'm not sure that's necessary/meaningful---cuz as I said above, I think, gravity affects everything we know about. Even other things that we know nothing about, but seem to exist necessarily [The Dark Twins of Matter and Energy]. Sure, they'll interact...they're in the same universe...but the Higgs has no causal or explanatory connection with gravity. [probably].

Posted: **Mon Mar 16, 2015 11:13 am**

Thats interesting [and challenging] that an entity could be intimately tied up with mass, but have no role/effect in gravity - hard to get ones head around.

The Horizon program definitely presented [primordial] gravitational waves as predicted by the Guth/Linde inflationary hypothesis, and their observation [or not] as the clincher [or nail in the coffin] of this idea. Presumably gravitational waves of a non big-bang origin [ie those generated when massive gravitational entities circle each other in space] were already known about and understood - but had early Universe gravitational waves been suggested by any other previous models of the first post big-bang nanoseconds? [Can't be really, can it, otherwise it could not be the clincher for the Inflation hypothesis.]

Posted: **Mon Mar 16, 2015 5:24 pm**

peter (USSM) wrote: but had early Universe gravitational waves been suggested by any other previous models of the first post big-bang nanoseconds? [Can't be really, can it, otherwise it could not be the clincher for the Inflation hypothesis.]

I THINK---but don't quote/believe me for certain---that gravity waves related to the big-bang had popped up in some works/models/maths before...but inflation ones would be different.
Like the difference between choppy seas and rolling waves.

And inflation requires them. [I think I saw a blurb somewhere about some variation of inflation that doesn't demand them, but there was something about it that made it flimsy].
And gives pretty good ideas of what they will "look" like.
And we have tech that should give a decent chance to spot them
[or very soon will have---things being manufactured right now, IIRC].
And the details of such waves would not only show that inflation---or something that mimics inflation and would have to be explained---was real, but illuminate many other areas. In part because it is a direct measurement, in part because it would provide empirical evidence below the Planck scale...and that kind of info is badly needed to address the gravity/quantum/GR problems.

Also, a very large number of calculations involving energy use estimates of potential. Spotting the waves, and measuring them, will provide an exact number to plug in to a vast quantity of shit currently based on guestimation. [[reasonably justified guestimation...but still rough and imprecise]]...and who knows what happens when all that stuff becomes specific and known?

Posted: **Tue Mar 17, 2015 5:05 pm**

One last question; In the program a scientist said that were a gravitational wave tp 'pass through this room', everything would be 'pulled apart' and then 'pushed together' as the wave passed through. Did she mean the space itself or just the matter within it. Presumably if it were the former, then one could survive such an occurence [hmm... maybe not] but if the latter then [definitely] not.

Posted: **Tue Mar 17, 2015 8:49 pm**

peter (USSM) wrote:One last question; In the program a scientist said that were a gravitational wave tp 'pass through this room', everything would be 'pulled apart' and then 'pushed together' as the wave passed through. Did she mean the space itself or just the matter within it. Presumably if it were the former, then one could survive such an occurence [hmm... maybe not] but if the latter then [definitely] not.

I would assume that it has to be both. And your survival would depend entirely on how close you were to the "source"/how big the wave was...in most cases it would have to be a very very large source and you would have to be extremely close to die. [because gravity is extremely weak to begin with, and it fades rapidly with distance.] And frequency would come into it somehow [I think the wavelengths are crazy-long...like, the "short" ones are kilometers, and theoretically, I believe, the wavelength could be the size of the Universe. Yep. One wave fills everything. [[I think it's even possible that it could have a wavelength larger than the Universe...but would be undetectable if so...though that might have been in an SF story somewhere.]]

Hell, it's possible that, in order for the gravity wave to be deadly to you, you might have to be so close to the source you'd have already died long ago from all the other crap in the region.

Posted: **Tue Mar 17, 2015 9:47 pm**

Gravity has always been a problem for physicists because even though they describe it as a "force" it really isn't; instead, gravity is bent and warped spacetime itself. In other words, the very fabric of "reality" is bent a certain way and all we can see are its side effects--physical objects move towards the center of gravity, the more mass something has the more it bends spacetime in its vicinity, etc. So far, we haven't been able to "make" gravity in a laboratory setting....but some fringe science websites describe experiments which induce results on accelerometers, indicating a shift in localized gravity. It is highly difficult to trust fringe science websites, though....

Some physicists hypothesize that because gravity has infinite reach that it must be "leaking" into our four-dimensional universe (well, we perceive only four even though there are more). The other problem with this is that because of its infinite reach gravitic effects are supraluminal. Picture two stars, each at precisely 1 solar mass, located 1 light year apart and far enough from every other source of matter that we can discount any other sources of gravity completely. If one star moves the other star "feels" the effect almost instantly. If we look at it from this point of view, then somehow gravity is, in some way I cannot yet describe, linked to quantum entanglement--distance is irrelevant and the effects occur instantly.

I still suspect that scientists a century from now will look back on us and wish they could pat us on our heads for being so cute with our primitive ideas. *shrug* We have to start somewhere.

Posted: **Tue Mar 17, 2015 10:45 pm**

Hashi Lebwohl wrote: If one star moves the other star "feels" the effect almost instantly.

I don't think that's true. Last I knew, observations of binary pulsars had shown gravity propagates at a speed that is indistinguishable from light speed...margin of error in measurement has dropped, I think, to .01...and we won't get much closer than that for quite a while, unless something major happens.

Anyway, much of physics hasn't been treating gravity like a force for a long time. At least in some contexts. How they treat it depends on what they're trying to figure out.
But the real problem is figuring out "how to treat it" as in "what IS it?"
Cuz it "works," particularly in GR/above quantum as curved spacetime, not a force.
But that isn't, can't be, so. It can, at best, be one part of it.
It can be a force, though...it just can't be ONLY a force as we define them now.
[[and I think that if it were just the spacetime curvature, related to mass directly as you say, then the Higgs discovery peter mentioned WOULD have been a big step towards gravitic solutions. But it isn't. No ones even talking about that]].

Anyway, you mentioned "fringe." I ran across a guy recently [you might have run across him, peter...he's one of the peeps who think time is the one "real" thing, if/when we have to reduce everything...more real than space]. Smolin? Smollin? He seems to be an interesting mix between physicists/philosophers one dare not ignore...and dare not take seriously.
He pisses off everyone...at times has apparently done significant work with many of the views, including string/brane which you point at.
His current view seems to be that there is one universe, time is real, math is insanely effective at describing only those things that happen to be mathematical...which isn't nearly as much as peeps think. [[that last one I agree with, kinda---people radically overstate the effectiveness, connectedness, realness, and importance of math in some areas. In others, of course, they ignore it at their peril]].
You might enjoy a peek at him, I thought.

Posted: **Wed Mar 18, 2015 4:08 pm**

I have a feeling he was quoted in that 'How to make a Human' book I read [definitely something somewhere about Time being the single fundamental 'thing' rings a bell].

re Gravity - didn't Deutsch deny it's existance all together in that book we read? [ie as a force or otherwise].

One [final] gravitational wave question; do the waves 'ripple' as in waves on the surface of a pond [a 'vibration' or 'oscilation' I suppose] or would a gravitational wave be a single 'one off' wave. I don't suppose it matters but it sort of helps me to think about what the 'scource' of such a wave might be.

Posted: **Wed Mar 18, 2015 5:21 pm**

peter (USSM) wrote: re Gravity - didn't Deutsch deny it's existance all together in that book we read? [ie as a force or otherwise].

One [final] gravitational wave question; do the waves 'ripple' as in waves on the surface of a pond [a 'vibration' or 'oscilation' I suppose] or would a gravitational wave be a single 'one off' wave. I don't suppose it matters but it sort of helps me to think about what the 'scource' of such a wave might be.

I believe he did...it would fit with the rest of his view on the nature or reality.
I think [or maybe hope] that Gravity really is something different. A different flavor of duality...and it kinda has to be, or we'd probably have solved it by now.
---Oh, and that Smollin/Smolin guy also thinks that the Laws of Nature, and at least some [maybe all??] of the physical constants can change over time. He might even go so far as to say because time is real, they HAVE to change over time. [[and that change is part of the reason we should be wary of the math/material reality connection/identity.]]

I don't think they'd be a one-off...though the inflation ones happened only the one time, it's not like a big tidal wave...it's all the waves as you look across the body of water. Not "A" ripple. Rippling body.
I think---and I could be totally off, and not in the mood to check my brain---that you're maybe messing yourself up with the water-wave thinking for this purpose? It works for some stuff---but I think in reality, they radiate like light does from a star [more like song/sound from your speakers, actually...but still].

Posted: **Wed Mar 18, 2015 5:25 pm**

Now messing myself up is one thing I am good at!

Kevin's Watch

Horizon - Aftershock; the hunt for gravitational waves

Horizon - Aftershock; the hunt for gravitational waves

Re: Horizon - Aftershock; the hunt for gravitational waves