Yousuf Khan wrote:
^^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Sammy’s got a new pseudonym but no e-mail address?

[…] I wonder how much of their energy was turned into gravity
^^^^^^^
waves? In the first event, a 29 and a 36 solar mass black holes turned
^^^^^
into 5 solar masses of gravity waves, and 60 solar mass of newly formed
^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ^^
black hole.

“In the source frame, the initial black hole masses are 36⁺⁵₋₄ M⊙ and
29⁺⁴₋₄ M⊙, and the final black hole mass is /62⁺⁴₋₄ M⊙/, with
/3.0^{+0.5}_{−0.5} M⊙ c²/ radiated in /gravitational/ waves [0].” [1]

(emphasis and reference mine)

Going proportionally, the secondary black holes are 8 & 14, so I would
guess that would result in 2 solar masses of gravity waves, and 20 solar
masses of new black hole.

Not quite. If you read the paper at PRL (which you can for free again,
thank you LSC and VC), you will realize that naive arithmetics does not work
because mass–energy is only one component of a body’s energy:

“The inferred source-frame initial black hole masses are
14.2^{+8.3}_{−3.7} M⊙ and 7.5^{+2.3}_{−2.3} M⊙, and the final black hole
mass is 20.8^{+6.1}_{−1.7} M⊙.” [2]

F'up2 sci.physics

___________
[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravity_wave
vs. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitational_wave
[1] B. P. Abbott et al. (LIGO Scientific Collaboration and Virgo
Collaboration). Phys. Rev. Lett. 116, 061102.
http://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.116.061102
[2] B. P. Abbott et al. (LIGO Scientific Collaboration and Virgo
Collaboration). Phys. Rev. Lett. 116, 241103.
http://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.116.241103
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