Evidence of Gravitational Waves, or Confirmation Bias?

[Higgsy]

I do have a problem however with their "assumption' that more massive object always merger faster than smaller objects. That seems like an arbitrary assumption.

It's not an assumption. The inspiral and merger of compact objects is caused by gravitational radiation described by the Einstein field equations. The inspiral would not happen in classical mechanics - it is a consequence of GR which you constantly claim to accept. GR predicts that rapidly rotating compact bodies will lose energy through gravitational radiation which will lead to their inspiral and ultimate merger. So, to calculate the characteristics of the inspiral phase, you need to solve the Einstein field equations.

There are no exact analytical solutions to the Einstein field equations for the two body problem, so theoreticians use approximations, called the post-Newtonian formalism, which are basically curtailed series expansions beyond the Einstein quadrupole formula of the metric tensor that describe how orbits depart from the classical form. The approximations become more and more accurate (they converge) for higher powers of v/c. So, for example, Einstein used expansion out to (v/c)2 in calculating the anomalous advance in the precession of Mercury and, in modern terminology, this is called 1PN. Calculations of inspiralling orbits are currently calculated out to 3.5PN or (v/c)7.

The calculations become increasingly lengthy and difficult for higher nPN even for equal mass circular orbits, and are complicated by unequal masses, elliptical orbits, and spinning bodies. Nevertheless, these calculations have been done for a vast range of conditions using numerical methods and computer power, and these are the templates used by LIGO and Virgo to match whitened strain data. The seminal paper that forms the foundation for this is Blanchet et al, Gravitational-Wave Inspiral of Compact Binary Systems to 7/2 Post-Newtonian Order. There is a huge literature about the post-Newtonian formalism. It is these templates, based on GR, which show that more massive bodies have fewer gravitational wave cycles in the bandwidth of LIGO/Virgo. However that conclusion falls rather easily out of the Einstein quadrupole formula.

Unless you are highly competent in tensor analysis you are just going to have to accept those results.

It's ironic that you are engaged in a campaign to get EU/PC people to accept GR (which doesn't seem to be going too well), whilst calling a rather obvious consequence of applying GR to orbital mechanics an "assumption".

[Michael Mozina]

I do have a problem however with their "assumption' that more massive object always merger faster than smaller objects. That seems like an arbitrary assumption.

It's not an assumption.

Considering the number of different variables related to mass sizes, charges (if any), orbital aspects, accretion disk influences, spin rates, merger angles, etc, ya, it's an "assumption", probably many of them in fact.

The inspiral and merger of compact objects is caused by gravitational radiation described by the Einstein field equations. The inspiral would not happen in classical mechanics - it is a consequence of GR which you constantly claim to accept. GR predicts that rapidly rotating compact bodies will lose energy through gravitational radiation which will lead to their inspiral and ultimate merger. So, to calculate the characteristics of the inspiral phase, you need to solve the Einstein field equations.

Ok. Then again the more massive the objects the more momentum they contain and the more momentum they'd need to shed in the form of gravitational waves in order for them to merge.

There are no exact analytical solutions to the Einstein field equations for the two body problem, so theoreticians use approximations, called the post-Newtonian formalism, which are basically curtailed series expansions beyond the Einstein quadrupole formula of the metric tensor that describe how orbits depart from the classical form.

Ya, and I suspect that is where a lot of 'assumptions' have to be made, and where the oversimplifications probably take place.

The approximations become more and more accurate (they converge) for higher powers of v/c. So, for example, Einstein used expansion out to (v/c)2 in calculating the anomalous advance in the precession of Mercury and, in modern terminology, this is called 1PN. Calculations of inspiralling orbits are currently calculated out to 3.5PN or (v/c)7.

The calculations become increasingly lengthy and difficult for higher nPN even for equal mass circular orbits, and are complicated by unequal masses, elliptical orbits, and spinning bodies. Nevertheless, these calculations have been done for a vast range of conditions using numerical methods and computer power, and these are the templates used by LIGO and Virgo to match whitened strain data. The seminal paper that forms the foundation for this is Blanchet et al, Gravitational-Wave Inspiral of Compact Binary Systems to 7/2 Post-Newtonian Order. There is a huge literature about the post-Newtonian formalism. It is these templates, based on GR, which show that more massive bodies have fewer gravitational wave cycles in the bandwidth of LIGO/Virgo. However that conclusion falls rather easily out of the Einstein quadrupole formula.

Unless you are highly competent in tensor analysis you are just going to have to accept those results.

I'm sorry, but I saw how LIGO siimply manipulated their sigma value by leaving out all environmental noise and making assumptions galore about blip transients. Mathematical models tend to get simplified to remove or oversimplify complications like charge, spin rates, merger angles etc. I'm inclined to believe that a lot of such 'oversimplication' would be required to be able to claim that massive objects always merge more "quickly" than lower mass objects. Even just the charge of the black holes could have an influence. Similarly charged black holse would tend to repel one another, whereas oppositely charged black holes would merge faster and be attracted to one another. It's complicatons like these which probably have to simply be ignored to come up with a 'one size fits all" math formula related to black hole mergers.

It's ironic that you are engaged in a campaign to get EU/PC people to accept GR (which doesn't seem to be going too well), whilst calling a rather obvious consequence of applying GR to orbital mechanics an "assumption".

You folks have a very bad habit of "lumping together" a whole lot of assumptions under the umbrella of "GR theory", like your insertion of magical forms of matter and energy into a supernatural blunder theory while trying to pass it off as GR theory and trying to ride the coattails of GR. I've come to doubt that your folks really care about the core aspects of GR vs. the "completely made up" metaphysical nonsense that you try to stuff into such formulas while still trying to ride the scientific coattails of GR theory.

Admittedly I have some reading to do about how they come up with such numbers and I thank you for your references as to where I might start, but just looking at it logically, it seems highly likely that many dubious "assumptions" would be required to come up with a "one size fits all" mass merger model which requires all massive objects to merge faster than lower mass objects.

IMO you should be happy that at least a few EU/PC proponents are big fans of GR theory, and they can tell the difference between the core aspects of GR, and the supernatural nonsense that is called 'LCDM" theory. Otherwise, I think everyone would agree that a theory that is 95 percent metaphysical bathwater should just be tossed out entirely. That's probably why GR has such a bad rap in our community. Not everyone takes the time to study GR and understand where GR ends and LCMD magic theory begins.

[Higgsy]

Considering the number of different variables related to mass sizes, charges (if any), orbital aspects, accretion disk influences, spin rates, merger angles, etc, ya, it's an "assumption", probably many of them in fact. Bla bla bla.

This has got to be one of the most ignorant and absurd posts I have ever seen. Extreme Dunning-Kruger effect and incorrigibility.

You accept GR theory? That is a joke. You don't have the mathematical chops to either accept it or reject it.

But as I said, the result you are looking for falls out of the Einstein quadrupole formula in the Newtonian limit (developed by AE between 1916 and 1918), where the amplitude of the gravitational radiation is given by the second time derivative of the source mass quadrupole moment. From that you can calculate the luminosity of the gravitational radiation, and therefore the rate of loss of energy and thus the change in frequency over time of the binary inspiral. The time to coalescence of a binary from any given separation turns out to be inversely proportional to the square of the sum of the masses (times the reduced mass). So two equal masses of total 20 solar masses coalesce ~51 times faster than a system of two equal masses total 2.8 solar masses. This is pretty basic stuff. All of the other things you mention are perturbations on this basic result and are taken care of to a high level of precision by the post-Newtonian formalism.

Your acceptance of GR theory is actually meaningless since you have no idea what GR actually is nor the first idea about how to solve the simplest GR problem.

(In the unlikely event that you actually want to learn something, and for anyone else following this, the following is a good resorce on the quadrupole formalism applied to compact binaries: https://www.ego-gw.it/public/events/ves ... errari.pdf . For a simpler but less rigourous treatment you could look at http://webs.um.es/bussons/GW_lecture_KG.pdf , but beware that the last expression on the slide headed "GW emission from a binary system (III)" is wrong - it should have tau going as in the inverse of M2 not M4)

[Michael Mozina]

Considering the number of different variables related to mass sizes, charges (if any), orbital aspects, accretion disk influences, spin rates, merger angles, etc, ya, it's an "assumption", probably many of them in fact. Bla bla bla.

This has got to be one of the most ignorant and absurd posts I have ever seen. Extreme Dunning-Kruger effect and incorrigibility.

You accept GR theory? That is a joke. You don't have the mathematical chops to either accept it or reject it.

This is a perfect example of the obligatory personal attack BS that you folks have become famous for. It's the kind of crap that you constantly resort to in order to elevate your cognitive dissonance. It's also exactly why most people around here tend to reject GR theory entirely along with the rest of the metaphysical crap that you load it up with. Your creation mythology utterly failed that quasar time dilation test, and I suppose that's my fault too? How did you explain that epic fail in your (mis)use of GR theory? Let me guess: I'm being ignorant and absurd for even asking?

The last time someone accused me of suffering from the Dunning-Kruger effect, it was over at JREF where the whole lot of those idiots were trying to claim that plasma and particle acceleration was *optional* in "magnetic reconnection, but of course not one of them could come up with a formula to express a non-zero rate of 'reconnection' in Clinger's absurd vacuum contraption. Projection at it's finest.

Blah, blah, blah, blah. You didn't even address a single point that I made about the potential complexity of the merger process, you cheated by attacking me personally, and then you spewed more 'mathier than thou' oversimplified nonsense at me without even considering a thing I said.

But as I said, the result you are looking for falls out of the Einstein quadrupole formula in the Newtonian limit (developed by AE between 1916 and 1918), where the amplitude of the gravitational radiation is given by the second time derivative of the source mass quadrupole moment. From that you can calculate the luminosity of the gravitational radiation, and therefore the rate of loss of energy and thus the change in frequency over time of the binary inspiral. The time to coalescence of a binary from any given separation turns out to be inversely proportional to the square of the sum of the masses (times the reduced mass). So two equal masses of total 20 solar masses coalesce ~51 times faster than a system of two equal masses total 2.8 solar masses. This is pretty basic stuff. All of the other things you mention are perturbations on this basic result and are taken care of to a high level of precision by the post-Newtonian formalism.

How *exactly* are they taken into account? Be specific. Start with the charge issue and eccentric orbits.

Your acceptance of GR theory is actually meaningless since you have no idea what GR actually is nor the first idea about how to solve the simplest GR problem.

I know for damn sure that GR theory is *not* dependent at all on any of the 'dark" invisible metaphysical crap that you load into it. It's not dependent on 'space expansion' either, although such concepts can of course be *stuffed into* a GR formula. I know it's not the least bit dependent upon your dead inflation genie either. That's at least *four* optional and metaphysical elements that are not even *required* in GR theory, but you're still trying to ride the scientific coattails of GR theory anyway! Who are you to lecture me about GR?

I think the problem you folks have is that you have no credibility whatsoever anymore with any "skeptic' of your claims because they first thing you folks do is blame the messenger for pointing out your BS, and you try to beat them into submission. Bah. You're just a jerk.

(In the unlikely event that you actually want to learn something, and for anyone else following this, the following is a good resorce on the quadrupole formalism applied to compact binaries: https://www.ego-gw.it/public/events/ves ... errari.pdf . For a simpler but less rigourous treatment you could look at http://webs.um.es/bussons/GW_lecture_KG.pdf , but beware that the last expression on the slide headed "GW emission from a binary system (III)" is wrong - it should have tau going as in the inverse of M2) not M4)

If you were professional or "nice" about your posts you'd have a lot better response. As it stands I don't even want to read your links or your references anymore because it's damn obvious that you didn't address any of my points, and you don't care to have an honest scientific conversation. You're a two bit bully with a terrible attitude.

I may eventually get around to reading them out of pure curiosity, but your last post certainly doesn't instill any confidence in your claim, and earned you no points with me. Get a life.

[Cargo]

compact objects

Actually. Here is where it all goes wrong and everything else you say is based on this false assumption of things which simple do not exist in reality.

[Bengt Nyman]

GRAVITATIONAL WAVES FOR DUMMIES.

Gravity exists between objects with mass. Gravity is a consequence of particle physics and is caused by a mutual strain between temporary Coulomb charge dipoles forming in all massy objects in the vicinity of other massy objects. Gravity between bodies in a multi-body system becomes very complex since all Coulomb charge dipoles in all bodies are pulling on all Coulomb charge dipoles in all other bodies.

Imagine a perfectly spherical earth alone and stationary in the universe without gravitational pull from external bodies, without internal strains caused by earth's continental plates and density variations, without centripetal deformation due to rotation around its own axis or orbit around the sun.
Now add our sun and earth's orbit around the sun. Earth is now no longer perfectly spherical because of the gravitational pull and centripetal deformation caused by earths's orbit around the sun. Now add the moon. Etc, etc.

With the rest of universe back in place we now have an earth with as many bumps or deformations as there are gravitational and relativistic effects on earth in its environment.
A gravitational wave detector measures transient gravitational events by detecting a resonance caused by sudden changes in the shape of a body. A sudden change in the shape of earth, or LIGO – the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory, occurs when the gravitational pull between earth and another body in space changes rapidly. For example when a body in space suddenly looses some of its mass by converting it (E=mc^2) to EM energy.

Unfortunately we have come to call this a gravitational wave. Instead of thinking of it as a fictitious wave of fictitious space-time, think of it as cutting off a tension-spring joining two objects. The sudden change of gravitational strain between the bodies travels with the speed of gravity and causes a minor change of shape of the associated bodies, plus the associated resonance in earth and its gravitational detectors like the LIGO.

Albert Einstein did not learn to speak until he was two years old, and he never became good with languages. I wish he had been able to explain "simple things in a simple way".

P.S. In defense of Albert it's worth pointing out that the necessary knowledge about particle physics required to understand and explain gravity was not available until 1964.

[Webbman]

learn about getting conned and how to avoid it because that's what's happening here.

pure madness...

[Bengt Nyman]

learn about getting conned and how to avoid it because that's what's happening here. Pure madness...

Be more specific!

[Solar]

GRAVITATIONAL WAVES FOR DUMMIES.

Gravity exists between objects with mass. Gravity is a consequence of particle physics and is caused by a mutual strain between temporary Coulomb charge dipoles forming in all massy objects in the vicinity of other massy objects. Gravity between bodies in a multi-body system becomes very complex since all Coulomb charge dipoles in all bodies are pulling on all Coulomb charge dipoles in all other bodies.

Imagine a perfectly spherical earth alone and stationary in the universe without gravitational pull from external bodies, without internal strains caused by earth's continental plates and density variations, without centripetal deformation due to rotation around its own axis or orbit around the sun.
Now add our sun and earth's orbit around the sun. Earth is now no longer perfectly spherical because of the gravitational pull and centripetal deformation caused by earths's orbit around the sun. Now add the moon. Etc, etc.

With the rest of universe back in place we now have an earth with as many bumps or deformations as there are gravitational and relativistic effects on earth in its environment.
A gravitational wave detector measures transient gravitational events by detecting a resonance caused by sudden changes in the shape of a body. A sudden change in the shape of earth, or LIGO – the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory, occurs when the gravitational pull between earth and another body in space changes rapidly. For example when a body in space suddenly looses some of its mass by converting it (E=mc^2) to EM energy.

Unfortunately we have come to call this a gravitational wave. Instead of thinking of it as a fictitious wave of fictitious space-time, think of it as cutting off a tension-spring joining two objects. The sudden change of gravitational strain between the bodies travels with the speed of gravity and causes a minor change of shape of the associated bodies, plus the associated resonance in earth and its gravitational detectors like the LIGO.

Albert Einstein did not learn to speak until he was two years old, and he never became good with languages. I wish he had been able to explain "simple things in a simple way".

P.S. In defense of Albert it's worth pointing out that the necessary knowledge about particle physics required to understand and explain gravity was not available until 1964.

I like your approach regarding "A sudden change in the shape... and associated resonance..." That is actually sensible. However it remains to be seen how that approach will compare with any results from LISA(?), the gravitational wave probe that will reside in space away from body Earth. I'll have to remember this.

Other than that there is this question regarding all of this activity characterized as occurring "between". What is conveying the "pulling", "strain", and resonance in the "between" of these bodies ?

[Bengt Nyman]

... However it remains to be seen how that approach will compare with any results from LISA(?), the gravitational wave probe that will reside in space away from body Earth...

Other than that there is this question regarding all of this activity characterized as occurring "between". What is conveying the "pulling", "strain", and resonance in the "between" of these bodies ?

Hi,
A sensor in space detecting transients in its own length to indicate fast changes in gravity from/to distant large masses should work just as well as one situated on or in earth.

The resonance I mention is in the gravity measuring system itself due to its own natural frequencies, if any.

Your question about what transmits gravity through space Is a good one. If recent data is correct gravity transmits with a speed very close to the speed of light. Were it instant, we would have missed the gravitational shift itself by 120 million years.

[Roshi]

Other than that there is this question regarding all of this activity characterized as occurring "between". What is conveying the "pulling", "strain", and resonance in the "between" of these bodies ?

Mathematics. Gravity is a mathematical "bend in space time". This bend or "wave" is transmitted through the mathematical medium of "space time". Simple, no physical explanation needed.

A better question would be: is that wave dampened by something? How and why? Because if it is not - it means it will be felt through the entire Universe, no matter if the Universe is infinite. That means - infinite energy created by a finite event. If I clap my hands - I created a mini-gravity wave. It will go to the end of the Universe moving every star just a little bit. Never slowing down or fading - that is a new kind of magic... We just need to capture these mathematical waves in a box and we got energy forever...

Same thing as when a clock physically slows down because of a mathematical Lorentz formula involving speed in relation to some other object. Why? "It's the formula dummy, that's why it does that, there is your explanation" - answers mainstream.

[Webbman]

1/10000 the width of a proton but yet built in an earthquake zone.

so by my calculations the uncertainty of this machine is 100%.

[Bengt Nyman]

... Gravity is a mathematical "bend in space time". This bend or "wave" is transmitted through the mathematical medium of "space time"...

I agree, not a satisfying explanation. See above, or below.

Same thing as when a clock physically slows down because of a mathematical Lorentz formula involving speed in relation to some other object ...

An atomic clock runs slower on earth than in GPS orbit because of the stronger gravity and associated Coulomb atom dipole elongation on earth. See http://www.dipole.se Lorentz transformation not required.

[Bengt Nyman]

1/10000 the width of a proton but yet built in an earthquake zone.
So by my calculations the uncertainty of this machine is 100%.

Agreed, better detection methods further out of the noise would be welcome. Also, don't worry about the concept of space-time and gravitational waves. They were conceived before we knew enough about particle physics to understand the mechanism of gravity. What AE called a gravitational wave is simply a sudden change in an external mass with a "measurable" gravitational influence on earth. No waves except for bursts of EM radiation released by the conversion of mass to energy.

[Webbman]

no. they clearly state the function of this machine is to detect stretched spacetime.

you must reject.