Originally posted by joe beyser Why does it have to be true for a Nobel?
I can invent any number of untrue theories, none of them will help the world terribly. The purpose of science is to explain the world. If the theory, or experiment (I haven't followed the link in the OP yet), improves our understanding of the world and increases our power over nature then it is deserving. To do that it has to be true, within the criteria science sets for itself for truth which is generally along the lines of "a better approximation than the last one.".
I've read the article now. If this is what has happened it is, if anything, more important than the confirmation of the existence of the Higgs Boson. It puts most Physics Nobel prizes to shame.
The "if true" part is whether the speculation of the journalists is true, not the actual detection.
Originally posted by DeepThought I've read the article now. If this is what has happened it is, if anything, more important than the confirmation of the existence of the Higgs Boson. It puts most Physics Nobel prizes to shame.
The "if true" part is whether the speculation of the journalists is true, not the actual detection.
There is also another controversy up in the air right now. GR Vs G4V. There is an alternate version of gravity by C. Mead, a professor at Caltech, one of his claims to fame is ."Moore's law'. Anyway, here is his theory and the gravity guys at LIGO are in tune with it:
A nice explanation for the general public such as myself: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/12150944/Gravitational-waves-Einstein-was-right-and-this-announcement-is-the-scientific-highlight-of-the-decade.html
Not only did the conclusively detect gravity waves, they detected them traveling at the speed of light which clearly implies gravity travels as the speed of light.
Originally posted by humy http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/2016/feb/11/ligo-detects-first-ever-gravitational-waves-from-two-merging-black-holes
Not only did the conclusively detect gravity waves, they detected them traveling at the speed of light which clearly implies gravity travels as the speed of light.
About three times the mass of the sun was converted into gravitational waves in a fraction of a second—with a peak power output about 50 times that of the whole visible universe.
Originally posted by twhitehead And in case anyone was wondering what was detected in the waves:
http://xkcd.com/1642/
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Hehe, good one๐ It does bring up a question, would it take a god to modulate a gravity wave that could be detected and demodulated on Earth so actual information could be send via gravity waves?