Is this what passes for hard science nowadays? This is a load of pseudoscientific mumbo-jumbo. They say "watching" as if to imply the science is harder that it is. It implies someone peering through a telescope. "Detecting" would be a better verb. "Thermonuclear explosions on their surfaces"? The pulsars are thermonuclear reactions themselves. "The blasts last only a few seconds"? But the "flicker" is detected at 600 or so times a second? What correlation is there to the detected pulse and a determination that it is the rotation?
"As the gravitational wave comes to me or my instrument, it actually has the effect of stretching space a little bit in one direction and squashing it in another direction," Barish said. "It goes back and forth between stretching and squashing at the rate of several hundred times a second."
So where's the observational data for that? This guy's been watching too many Star Trek shows.
Correction. A pulsar is a super dense ball of neutrons, which is why it's also known as a neutron star. It forms when a supernova explosion compresses the core of the star so much so that the atoms collapse and the electrons and protons merge to form neutrons. No thermonuclear reactions take place inside the pulsar, if the theories are correct, as there is no material remaining that can undergo fusion.
As for the thermonuclear reactions on the surface of the pulsar (caused by gas trapped from other stars), they are seen by telescopes such as the Chandra X-ray telescope and they last long enough so that as they rapidly flicker on and off due to the rotation of the pulsar, the scientists can figure out the rate of rotation.
To be exact, this would be what passes for journalism nowadays...
What is your level of expertise, for you to pass such a judgment?
They say "watching" as if to imply the science is harder that it is. It implies someone peering through a telescope. "Detecting" would be a better verb.
I think "watching" is a perfectly good description. In fact, this science is much "harder" than someone peering through the eyepiece of an optical telescope, as the time resolution and sensitivity of a radio telescope are much finer.
"Thermonuclear explosions on their surfaces"? The pulsars are thermonuclear reactions themselves.
That makes no sense.
"The blasts last only a few seconds"? But the "flicker" is detected at 600 or so times a second? What correlation is there to the detected pulse and a determination that it is the rotation?
Suppose you were watching the Earth--yes, "watching", with a radio telescope--from a distant star. Suppose you were looking in a frequency band where there was a particularly powerful radio station. The station isn't always on; for some reason, it only operates for a few weeks at a time, at odd intervals. Over the years, you'd see the signal go on and off. Superimposed over this signal, you'd see the signal go up and down with a period of 24 hours. This "flicker" is caused by the rotation of the Earth: when the transmitter is on the far side of the Earth, it's harder to hear than when it's pointing at you. In the periods when the blast of radio waves is being sent out, you can measure the rotation of the Earth.
It's the same thing with the pulsar. There aren't any radio stations on the surface--so far as we know!--but clumps of matter falling onto the surface of the star (causing huge explosions as they land) serve the same purpose. The radio signals from these explosions, lasting several seconds each, go up and down from the rotation of the star.
So where's the observational data for that?
Although indirect, the measurements from the Hulse-Taylor binary pulsar verify the gravitational radiation predictions of Einstein's Theory of General Relativity to many decimal places. This research was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1993. The theory dates to 1915, and has withstood many experimental tests since.
This guy's been watching too many Star Trek shows.
As you say, but Barry Barish is also a world-class physicist, and what he says in this case is correct.