[RightWhale]

What is the speed of propagation of gravity waves?

For some reason, FReepers have opinions on this.

[LibWhacker]

Wonder if they'll be able to tell what direction the waves are coming from?

[DugwayDuke]

Opinions? It's my opinion that gravity waves are the real cause of my recent weight gain.

[pollwatcher]

"Scientists are frustrated as they seek to recalibrate their instruments each time Rosie O' take an intercontinental air trip..."

[boris]

"What is the speed of propagation of gravity waves?"

Gravity waves travel at "c", i.e., light speed.

Some people, notably Tom Van Flandern and cohorts have advanced the position that gravity must propagate at infinite velocity. Their arguments are based on straightforward--and unfortunately incorrect--interpretations of classical dynamics. These arguments produce the conclusion that if gravity travelled at any finite velocity, the Solar System would be unstable and all of the planets would be accelerated out of the system by the "couple" (of forces) resulting from finite gravity propagation.

This position has been refuted by appeal to both special and general relativity. These theories show that gravity waves will radiate any "excess energy" and hence excess angular momentum, in precisely the correct amounts to keep the planets in their appointed orbits.

--Boris

[Blood of Tyrants]

Gravity waves CANNOT travel at the speed of light because they are too heavy.

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

This was all predicted by Gene Roddenberry (and Harlan Ellison) years ago in the Emmy nominated Star Trek episode, "The City on the Edge of Forever".

The Enterprise discovered the existence of The Guardian time portal device mainly because of extremely intense gravity waves emmanating from a distant planet.

Another case of life imitating art.

[bribriagain]

"We get signal"

[m1911]

Future science ping.

[pepsi_junkie]

Am I missing something? This article basically says "Einstein predicted these things exist, we have never actually observed them. But we probably will within two years (no real explanation of how or why we are so confident of that). And by the way, they are going to be amazing".

Basically it says something might be detected someday. I beleive the title is overstating the real situation a bit. Interesting though.

[Sabertooth]

((((((growl)))))

[F.J. Mitchell]

I'll turn seventy on election day, I have become very knowledgible of gravytie stains, not to mention my poor shirt when not wearing a tie.

[AFreeBird]

BUMP for later reading

[aruanan]

"Think of it: Gravity waves come to us from the edge of the universe, from the beginning of time, unchanged," he said. "They carry completely different information than electromagnetic waves. Perhaps the most exciting thing about them is that we may well not know what it is we're going to observe. We think black holes, for sure. But who knows what else we might find?"

If gravity propagates at the speed of light, we wouldn't be able to detect gravity waves "from the beginning of time". If gravity propagates considerably faster than the speed of light, we certainly couldn't detect anything from the beginning of time, though in either case one could detect something from the edge of the universe, providing there actually is an edge. If there were an edge, though, it wouldn't be the same thing as the beginning of time.

[Southack]

Gravity is the Energy of a Mass, therefore

G=EM

Since we already know that E=MC^2, we can solve for G, giving us G=C^2.

So Gravity is the speed of light squared (just try to ignore the dimensional consistency/inconsistency aspects of that equation).

[BLASTER 14]

To those of you who are really interested in the subject(not those of you who made the smartass remarks), I recommend the following book: "The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, the Quest for the Ultimate Theory" by Brian Greene, W.W. Norton & Company, 500 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY, 10110.

It's heavy going, about 450 pages, but really interesting.

Cheers and happy reading.

B14

[rmmcdaniell]

Obviously these newly discovered waves disprove evolution.

[El Gato]

What is the speed of propagation of gravity waves?

No higher than the speed of light...unless Einstein was wrong about the fundamental assumption in his relativity theories. Of course if he was then using his theories to predict the shape of gravity waves would seem to not be very productive. Regardless, we are bound to learn something from all this.

[Mr. K]

"Think of it: Gravity waves come to us from the edge of the universe, from the beginning of time, unchanged,"

I have never been able to understand this thinking. If waves are arriving right here and now from the beginning of time, then why didn't they arrive one minute ago or 2 days from now?

Are they saying that any time you look you will be able to observe the same moment?

I dunno- my head hurts thinking about it. (and I have a BS in Physics AND another one in computer science...)

[AngryAmerican]

All your gravity waves are belong to us.

[Physicist]

The mystery comes into focus. From this thread:

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To: DoughtyOne

Seismology and Geology seem to create more pseudoscientific garbage than any other science besides medicine.

13 posted on 10/22/2002 2:28 AM EDT by John H K
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To: John H K

Not true! Ever read cosmology or quantum theories?

22 posted on 10/22/2002 10:31 AM EDT by Barry Goldwater
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