Today, the team behind the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) is announcing the detection of a third black hole merger, the first from its second operational run. The merger shares some features with the previous ones: the black holes were bigger than expected, and their merger released a staggering amount of energy. But the LIGO team was also able to extract some information about the details of the collision and propagation of gravitational waves. These details tell us someting about the limits of general relativity and the history of the black holes themselves.
I watched an interview this morning about this. They hinted that they are sitting on a ton of more observations that have yet to made public as they still doing the QA/QC on the results. It sounds like they are making observations every month, but are looking at upgrades that will let they make multiple observations a day.
The black hole that resulted from the merger had a mass of 48.7 times that of the Sun. In terms of mass, that places this event in the middle of the two mergers that were identified during LIGO's previous run.
Those of you who are quick with math will recognize that leaves two solar masses of material missing that was converted into energy and radiated away in the form of gravitational waves during the merger. For a brief moment, the collision radiated away 1056 ergs a second (or 1034 megatons). That's enough to let us notice it, even though it was three billion light years away, the farthest event yet detected through gravitational waves.
Wow. Imagine that. The mass of two suns being converted into energy in a moment. Think off all the energy the sun will give off over its billions of years, double that and burn it all in a second.
Somewhat related, I like to wonder if black holes are the cause of big bangs (we miss you fotze). A universe is what pops out the other side when one forms. Fun to think about.
Wow. Imagine that. The mass of two suns being converted into energy in a moment. Think off all the energy the sun will give off over its billions of years, double that and burn it all in a second.
I think it's even more significant because the sun will only convert a fraction of its mass into energy over its lifetime, while the article suggests that two solar masses were completely converted into energy.
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Somewhat related, I like to wonder if black holes are the cause of big bangs (we miss you fotze). A universe is what pops out the other side when one forms. Fun to think about.
Steve! I know this is a bit older news, but I just saw the pictures and realized that one of my life mysteries has been solved. About 20 years ago I was walking home in Canmore around 1:00am. I saw "Steve" shooting up over Rundle, watched for about 30 minutes. It as mostly stationary, so I thought it couldn't be the northern lights. I considered all sorts of options, like beam lights from Banff, but nothing really made sense until now. Good to know it was real, and not aliens! The one I saw looked more like the last image in the article, but this is Rundle...
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I have a science question and didn't want to make a totally new thread for it. Figured bumping this would get me the right crowd. Have a relativity question I think I'm right about but want make sure.
If I'm travelling to a different planet at light speed. Let's say 50 years. Earth experiences the full 50 light years of time (however long), yes? What about the planet I'm travelling to? Does it only go through 50 years of change while you get there?
If I'm understanding your question correctly, it would because 50 is 50 years. You travelling at the speed of light for 50 years doesn't change how the two planets experience time.
I have a science question and didn't want to make a totally new thread for it. Figured bumping this would get me the right crowd. Have a relativity question I think I'm right about but want make sure.
If I'm travelling to a different planet at light speed. Let's say 50 years. Earth experiences the full 50 light years of time (however long), yes? What about the planet I'm travelling to? Does it only go through 50 years of change while you get there?
If I'm understanding your question correctly, it would because 50 is 50 years. You travelling at the speed of light for 50 years doesn't change how the two planets experience time.
It changes how you experience time relative to each destination, no?
Yes the planet you're travelling to would also experience 50 years of time, as would anything else that was "stationary" in your frame of reference.
EDIT: If you're travelling at light speed, your subjective travel time would be zero as zero time would have passed. Light, as far as it's concerned, arrives at its destination instantly.
EDIT2: It also travels zero distance to reach its destination from it's perspective
__________________ Uncertainty is an uncomfortable position.
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I have a science question and didn't want to make a totally new thread for it. Figured bumping this would get me the right crowd. Have a relativity question I think I'm right about but want make sure.
If I'm travelling to a different planet at light speed. Let's say 50 years. Earth experiences the full 50 light years of time (however long), yes? What about the planet I'm travelling to? Does it only go through 50 years of change while you get there?
If the planet earth and planet X are traveling at the same speed relative to each other or at least less than 1000 times less than the speed of light than time in the "rest" frame of reference would occur equally between the two.
Now the ship traveling at the speed of light will undergo acceleration and deceleration (elimination of the twins paradox) so it is the ship that the relativistic affects will apply to. So 50 years would pass in the rest frame and zero time would pass in the moving frame. at 99% of the speed of light 10% of the time or 5 years would pass. (I might be screwing up the Lorentz transform through)
All times measured from the rest frame.
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I guess what my deeper question is the age of the hypothetical astronaughts vs people one either world.
Let's say for argument that you CAN travel at light speed ala Star Wars. If I need to do a 50 year trip from Tatooine to Earth at 20 years old, how old are the people on Tatooine and Earth and how old am I?
Planet to planet starts to get confusing. To understand what happens traveling at light speed, I like this example. If we travelled at light speed but never left earth.
Essentially: Train rips around the earth for 100 years at light speed. Passengers only experience 1 week of time.
A team out of the University of Alberta and the National Research Council of Canada (NRC) has created the first commercial application of molecular electronics in the form of electronic junctions in guitar pedals, helping musicians improve their sound quality and harmonics in the process.
PHILADELPHIA — When doctors saw the report on Bill Ludwig’s bone-marrow biopsy, they thought it was a mistake and ordered the test repeated. But the results came back the same: His lethal leukemia had been wiped out by an experimental treatment never before used in humans.
“We were hoping for a little improvement,” remembered the 72-year-old retired New Jersey corrections officer, who had battled the disease for a decade. He and his oncologist both broke down when she delivered the good news in 2010. “Nobody was hoping for zero cancer.”
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