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Old August 16th 04, 04:44 AM
Greysky
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"dkomo" wrote in message
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I found an old PBS documentary on VHS from 1991 called _The Astronomers_
at the local public library. One of the programs in the series was
"Waves of the Future" about gravitational waves. In the program Kip
Thorne was shown making a bet with one of his collaborators on gravity
wave theory that these waves would positively be detected by 2000.

I found this both humorous and a touch sad. The program described some
of the early planning for LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave
Observatory). Curious, I went to the LIGO web site to see what was
going on. I found nothing of substance there -- just a lot of slick PR.

So my question is, what are the prospects that gravity waves will be
detected anytime soon? Is LIGO still having technical problems or what?
It is now 2004, after all. Other detection labs are being built around
the world. Are these labs going to have any better luck?

Yep. And the AI folks had predicted machine intelligence by now, too. We do
have Fritz8...


Also, what are people's opinions about gravity waves? Is it possible
that these are a scientific dead end like the decay of the proton turned
out to be? If gravity waves are never detected, what are the
implications for the general theory of relativity?


The implications of conservation of baryon number as you allude to when you
say proton decay detection represents a dead end has not yet been truly
absorbed in the greater schema of thought. Something very wrong is occuring
and we are just now obtaining proof that the last 30 years of thought is
wrong. The first run of gravity wave detection has determined a baseline for
event detection that can only get larger (read worse) the longer they run
the interferometers..... if no gravity waves are detected out to theoretical
limits - as has happened with proton decay- then there will be none but the
blind who will say our interpretation of the universe is dead wrong and is
wrong in such a way that theoreticians will not be able to fix, or modify,
current theory to make it even seem to work on a bad day. There are already
rumblings coming from unnamed sources that the first run should have found
*something*.... believe me, there are many careers at stake on the result of
this project, as well as many fingers crossed...

We may even have to rip the "Big Black Book" in half and throw it, along
with substantial portions of geometrodynamics in the trash can on this one
if it should go wrong.

Greysky

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