Gravitational waves observed for the first time, proving Albert Einstein right 100 years on.

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Awrrr
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#1491353 12-Feb-2016 19:42

Fred99:

Anyway, there's nothing to disprove faith in god having created the earth 6000 years ago, complete with dinosaur bones and geological evidence etc to trick those of little faith to believe it might have happened without him. That he did such a brilliant job with that deception serves only to support belief in his power.

You gotta admire that god guy!

Plesse igmore amd axxept applogies in adbance fir anu typos

mdav056

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#1491364 12-Feb-2016 20:09

But you have to ask -- why such a trickster? Why would He want to support a whole lot of people who fail to believe what is Written? Perhaps it is just the social psychology principle that in-groups do better when there is an out group? But wait -- He decided that too. <confused>

gml

JWR

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#1491367 12-Feb-2016 20:33

surfisup1000:

Love this stuff.

Unfortunately this spells the end of faster than light communications though.

Now that gravity has a speed.

That isn't a new idea.

Even more evidence for it now.

Faster then light communication would allow you to send information into the past.

That would result in similar problems (paradoxes) to time travel.

The main thing to know about paradoxes is that they don't exist.

So, time travel/faster than light communication is probably impossible.

Rikkitic

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#1491368 12-Feb-2016 20:41

Howso? If the past was being affected by information from the future you wouldn't know it. Your 'present' would merely keep rearranging itself according to the latest information.

Plesse igmore amd axxept applogies in adbance fir anu typos

JWR

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#1491390 12-Feb-2016 21:07

Rikkitic:

Howso? If the past was being affected by information from the future you wouldn't know it. Your 'present' would merely keep rearranging itself according to the latest information.

We could cable (I think that was the technology back then ) Hitler full specs for the atom bomb and tell him to use it where your Grandfather lived.

So it is the same sort of problem as the time-travel Grandfather paradox.

But, from a fundamental Physics level, it is a fundamental break in causality. i.e. causes precedes effect.

It just isn't the way things are.

JWR

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#1491407 12-Feb-2016 21:23

mdav056:

But you have to ask -- why such a trickster? Why would He want to support a whole lot of people who fail to believe what is Written? Perhaps it is just the social psychology principle that in-groups do better when there is an out group? But wait -- He decided that too. <confused>

I thought the Great Deceiver was supposed to be Satan.

surfisup1000

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#1491409 12-Feb-2016 21:25

JWR:

So, time travel/faster than light communication is probably impossible.

Probably impossible means possible haha.

Time has been said to be just an illusion. Really, we don't know.

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mdav056

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#1491419 12-Feb-2016 21:49

I'm no expert, but doesn't the communication involved in entanglement move faster than light? If the entangled photon was 1.6 billion light years away (in the past), is this not the future (us, now, fixing a photon) affecting the past?

gml

JWR

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#1491425 12-Feb-2016 22:00

surfisup1000:

JWR:

So, time travel/faster than light communication is probably impossible.

Probably impossible means possible haha.

Time has been said to be just an illusion. Really, we don't know.

Of course I say 'probably'!

Physics has two great theories; Quantum and Relativity.

They both make amazingly accurate predictions and are used extensively in technology.

But, they are fundamentally incompatible and both break down in the conditions of the very early (much less than a second) Universe.

However, a restriction on faster than light communication/information seems to hold for both.

Perhaps, in our lifetimes, we might see a theory that combines the relative and the quantum.

Given the weirdness of current theories, who could predict what some future theory might lead to.

JWR

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#1491433 12-Feb-2016 22:15

mdav056:

I'm no expert, but doesn't the communication involved in entanglement move faster than light? If the entangled photon was 1.6 billion light years away (in the past), is this not the future (us, now, fixing a photon) affecting the past?

Yes, but entanglement does not propagate information faster than light.

It is difficult to explain.

I can give you an analogy (not mine - I read it somewhere).

Someone cuts a 5 dollar note in half and posts it to two people. Both open the envelope an instantly know the other has received half a 5 dollar note.

Has information traveled faster than light?

Btw, it is just an analogy - just to help understanding - not to represent the actual situation.

freitasm

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#1491443 12-Feb-2016 22:59

JWR:

mdav056:

But you have to ask -- why such a trickster? Why would He want to support a whole lot of people who fail to believe what is Written? Perhaps it is just the social psychology principle that in-groups do better when there is an out group? But wait -- He decided that too. <confused>

I thought the Great Deceiver was supposed to be Satan.

"The finest trick of the devil is to persuade you that he does not exist" (Baudelaire)

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TwoSeven

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#1491444 12-Feb-2016 22:59

JWR:

surfisup1000:

Love this stuff.

Unfortunately this spells the end of faster than light communications though.

Now that gravity has a speed.

That isn't a new idea.

Even more evidence for it now.

Faster then light communication would allow you to send information into the past.

That would result in similar problems (paradoxes) to time travel.

The main thing to know about paradoxes is that they don't exist.

So, time travel/faster than light communication is probably impossible.

I understood that anything with mass would require infinite energy to travel at the speed of light, and those that have no [rest] mass only travel at the speed of light (eg. gravity and light) although I think light is affected by gravity. So I think to send information into the past would require something that a) doesn't have mass and b) isn't limited to the speed of light.

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JWR

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#1491456 12-Feb-2016 23:38

freitasm:

JWR:

mdav056:

But you have to ask -- why such a trickster? Why would He want to support a whole lot of people who fail to believe what is Written? Perhaps it is just the social psychology principle that in-groups do better when there is an out group? But wait -- He decided that too. <confused>

I thought the Great Deceiver was supposed to be Satan.

"The finest trick of the devil is to persuade you that he does not exist" (Baudelaire)

“When the late Pope John Paul II decided to place the woman so strangely known as “Mother” Teresa on the fast track for beatification, and thus to qualify her for eventual sainthood, the Vatican felt obliged to solicit my testimony and I thus spent several hours in a closed hearing room with a priest, a deacon, and a monsignor, no doubt making their day as I told off, as from a rosary, the frightful faults and crimes of the departed fanatic. In the course of this, I discovered that the pope during his tenure had surreptitiously abolished the famous office of “Devil’s Advocate,” in order to fast‐track still more of his many candidates for canonization. I can thus claim to be the only living person to have represented the Devil pro bono.”
― Christopher Hitchens

I'm with him on the Devil's existence:)

Batman

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#1491459 12-Feb-2016 23:51

freitasm:

gzt: Gravity is just a theory.

Not sure if serious1...

1Scientific theory. "[A] well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world that is acquired through the scientific method and repeatedly tested and confirmed through observation and experimentation. As with most (if not all) forms of scientific knowledge, scientific theories are inductive in nature and aim for predictive power and explanatory capability."

It is a serious theory for theoretical physicists.

Batman

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#1491460 12-Feb-2016 23:57

Not so fast guys.

1. Observation of gravitational waves only confirms that the widely known model, the Standard Model as an explanation of how we are able to exist, is well short of the mark because this model cannot explain gravity.

2. The way forward is to find the quantum particle associated with gravitational waves, proposed as the graviton. I believe this was proposed in the days of Higgs, maybe even earlier.

3. Till we find and mathematically proof the graviton we are none the wiser. For the moment.

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