PRODUCING gravity waves with LIGO!:

http://www.sciencealert.com/surprise-ligo-can-also-make-gravitational-waves?perpetual=yes&limitstart=1

New communications band anyone?

Originally posted by sonhouse
New communications band anyone?

Not any time soon.

The article makes some rather vague and obviously false assertions. But it is quite likely the physicists know more than is in the article and may be on to something, but even so, they almost certainly could not produce waves large enough to use for communication.

At its heart, LIGO is nothing more than two rulers. I fail to see how that automatically makes it any good at creating gravity waves.

Originally posted by twhitehead
Not any time soon.

The article makes some rather vague and obviously false assertions. But it is quite likely the physicists know more than is in the article and may be on to something, but even so, they almost certainly could not produce waves large enough to use for communication.

At its heart, LIGO is nothing more than two rulers. I fail to see how that automatically makes it any good at creating gravity waves.

I think it was talking about some kind of quantum effect. But like you said, not any time soon. For one thing, suppose the energy of such a gravity wave was equal to the incoming wave, probably not true, but for argument sake, the level of gravity wave would be so small I doubt it would be felt in any nearby LIGO like instrument. At least that is my take. Assuming there is anything to this report.

Originally posted by sonhouse
http://www.sciencealert.com/surprise-ligo-can-also-make-gravitational-waves?perpetual=yes&limitstart=1

New communications band anyone?

Gravity waves are waves on the surface of water, you mean gravitational waves. You can make gravitational waves at home by jumping up and down. I don't think they expect the waves to be detectable, the seem to want to do decoherence experiments with them.

Originally posted by DeepThought
Gravity waves are waves on the surface of water, you mean gravitational waves. You can make gravitational waves at home by jumping up and down. I don't think they expect the waves to be detectable, the seem to want to do decoherence experiments with them.

Sorry, wrong term. There are also gravity waves in the atmosphere. Like I said, if the did generate gravitational waves, I don't see how they could be as strong as the ones detected, seems to me they would be about the same 'power'. Which would be near impossible to pick up unless you had another ligo a mile a way or some such....

Another problem, even if it turns out to be true and they can make these gravitational waves, it would only be piggybacked on incoming waves if I read the piece right, maybe some kind of gravitational wave echo or transponder like affair. I don't see anything in the piece suggesting LIGO could independently make these waves.