Evidence of Gravitational Waves, or Confirmation Bias?

[Michael Mozina]

Either way however, there should at least be *some* build up before the main wave peak, and we did see such a build up in the last few minutes of the visible event. We didn't see anything of the sort in the miraculous conception events however. Why is that?

This video explains the differing lengths of buildup....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrz_MdAJ4c8

I love how he says "For 20 years I've been waiting for that sound to come from nature."

Thanks for the link. Nice presentation. I also enjoyed how he characterized the previous 'sounds' which looked more like common, very short blip transient type of events.

I'm not sure I quite buy their 'explanation" about the mass dictating the speed of the merger, but in fairness that does seem to be the way their mathematical models work, and they therefore do follow that basic pattern.

IMO is a shame LIGO didn't way a couple of years to lead off with an actual example of multimessenger astronomy. It would have made their case much stronger. It also tends to underscore the biased nature of their previous claims since all other claims as to cause were "eliminated' based on a lack of external support, whereas they simply seem to "assume" that all chirp events that fall into their delay timeline window *must* be celestial merger events.

The more I read and study the last event, the more impressive it is. I also found their "cocoon" model to be rather interesting. That would tend to explain the original gamma/x-ray burst observation, which II was originally puzzled by.

I must say that the more that I read about the last event, the more I really am excited for LIGO. I'm extremely relieved to see that the public funds which have been spent and allocated on LIGO have ultimately paid off, and have produced such stunning multimessenger results. I was worried for awhile that there just weren't any big budget mainstream programs that were ever going to produce any real results, but that's clearly not the case with LIGO.

The observation tends to confirm both the speed of gravitational waves is the speed of light, and they also validate the quadropole emission patterns expected by GR.

Whatever the metaphysical faults of LCDM "dark magic" theory, GR theory itself has to be one of the most tested and successful models in astronomy today. I really do think that we as a cosmology community need to be very careful about not throwing out the GR baby with the LCDM bathwater.

[Zyxzevn]

The long-term signal that the LIGO produced is indeed very interesting.
It was one of my cases against the other LIGO "detections".
The null-result of the Virgo is for me a failure for confirmation of the detection,
yet they used it as a confirmation of the direction.
Whether or not the Virgo-detector has a blind spot, the Virgo
is on a different content and electric grid. So it does not have the same correlated
disturbances that LIGO has.
It could also be seen as a confirmation that the signal comes originates from
the continent (geology, weather, sun) or via the electric grid (or even internet).

The visible signal is also a good point. It was also one of the cases against
the other LIGO detections.
But I do not think that the visible signal is a neutron-star merger.
The visible signal looks like a common nova.
The only reason we think that is the timing with the LIGO signal, nothing else.

Related to the orbiting of stellar objects.
The prediction of GR that stars slowly fall towards each other in orbit seems false.
The moon is moving away from earth. And earth is moving away from the sun.
New scientist: Why is the Earth moving away from the sun?
So it seems that objects in orbit are not spiralling towards each other,
and can therefore not produce gravitational waves.

[Michael Mozina]

The long-term signal that the LIGO produced is indeed very interesting.
It was one of my cases against the other LIGO "detections".
The null-result of the Virgo is for me a failure for confirmation of the detection,
yet they used it as a confirmation of the direction.
Whether or not the Virgo-detector has a blind spot, the Virgo
is on a different content and electric grid. So it does not have the same correlated
disturbances that LIGO has.

The detectors do have "blind spots" and they are more sensitive in specific directions too. They actually used that lack of a signal in Virgo, and Virgo's blind spot to help them narrow down the list of candidate galaxies to just 49 galaxies, and they found the visual signal in just three tries by prioritizing their search based on the size of the galaxies. That would not have worked as they expected if this was just an environmental signal of some kind.

I was (and still am) highly skeptical of LIGO's previous claims, but not the last one. It's everything I could ask for frankly.

It could also be seen as a confirmation that the signal comes originates from
the continent (geology, weather, sun) or via the electric grid (or even internet).

The problem with that assumption is that you'd also have to assume that it "just so happened" that a gamma ray burst took place at the right time, and the LIGO triangulation method just so happened to land in the same area as the gamma ray burst and just so happen to fit their distance estimates too. That's a boat load of coincidences.

The visible signal is also a good point. It was also one of the cases against
the other LIGO detections.

I would agree frankly.

But I do not think that the visible signal is a neutron-star merger.
The visible signal looks like a common nova.
The only reason we think that is the timing with the LIGO signal, nothing else.

Keep in mind that the triangulation estimates and distance estimates also fit their model. Whether it's a BNS merger may be debatable, but the signal they detected in LIGO does correlate to a real celestial event in the right direction and at the right distance. That's hard to ignore.

Related to the orbiting of stellar objects.
The prediction of GR that stars slowly fall towards each other in orbit seems false.
The moon is moving away from earth. And earth is moving away from the sun.
New scientist: Why is the Earth moving away from the sun?
So it seems that objects in orbit are not spiralling towards each other,
and can therefore not produce gravitational waves.

Hmmm. I don't think you can use a couple of examples of objects moving away from each other to support the claim that they can never move towards each other. Comets routinely crash themselves into the sun and various planets all the time. I think a lot depends on the specific conditions in play.

In theory at least, the emission of gravitational waves would have the net effect of taking energy out of the system and would tend to cause them to move toward each other over time.

I realize that GR theory has been horrifically abused by the mainstream and that's part of the reason for the high amount of skepticism of GR theory within our community. I think GR theory gets a bad wrap unfairly IMO.

I do think that mainstream astronomers would find EU/PC more attractive is they could take their GR skill set with them when they jump ship, and they will eventually feel compelled to jump ship. I don't think it's in our best interest to simply discard the successes of GR theory, particularly as it relates to gravitational waves. Keep in mind that there may be a way to explain time dilation and gravitational waves as being "effects" caused by some type of quantum process, but so far at least GR theory can explain things that other models of gravity don't explain as well, or as elegantly. Gravity does certainly play a role in events in space, so GR theory is fine by me, its just that gravity isn't the *only* important force/curvature in space that we must consider.

GR theory does not depend on the validity of space expansion claims, or exotic forms of matter or energy. These are all "optional" add-on that define LCMD, but they aren't integral parts of GR theory itself. We should as a community be careful not to throw out the GR baby with the LCDM bathwater. They aren't the same things.

I for one am willing to give LIGO the benefit of any remaining doubts I may have in terms of that last BNS merger paper. There are just too many positive elements in that discovery to not be impressed IMO. The mere fact they could narrow down the list of candidate galaxies to just 49 out of billions of galaxies is quite impressive IMO. The odds of that happening by chance are just astronomical.

[Webbman]

confirms my thoughts about a number of things...

[Cargo]

As there ever been a recorded event of two planets having a gravitational collision? How about two Stars?

It's weird you mention a Comet, because that's theoretically about the size of a Neutron Time Bomb Star. And two of them somehow found each other and did a gravity double black hole gravity merger of wonder. The Space Artists are going nuts.

Soon, the LIEGO will be able to map out the Gravity Wave Background from the Big Bang.

[comingfrom]

Thunderbolts Project has released 2 videos on gravitational waves.
I didn't see the links in this thread yet.

Wal doesn't hold back, as he gives us the EU point of view.

No -- Gravitational Waves Have Not Been Observed

Big Science and the Impossibility of Gravitational Waves

[Bengt Nyman]

Wal doesn't hold back, as he gives us the EU point of view.

No -- Gravitational Waves Have Not Been Observed

The disagreement between Wal and SM is partially a matter of nomenclature. Wal is right when he says that there is no such thing as a gravitational wave and that recent observations have nothing to do with gravity.
Gravity is a consequence of particle physics, and its effects contribute to events in space, but gravity is not caused by macro events in space.
The events recently detected are better categorized by EM shock waves from distant high energy events in space.
Since the time delay between the first observed wave and gamma was only 2 seconds, it is likely that the initial observation was caused by the leading edge of the gamma wave. Delays claimed for the remaining EM spectrum from 10 hrs to 16 days, and not in order of wavelength, defy explanation.

[Michael Mozina]

The events recently detected are better categorized by EM shock waves from distant high energy events in space.
Since the time delay between the first observed wave and gamma was only 2 seconds, it is likely that the initial observation was caused by the leading edge of the gamma wave.

It might be better categorized as the leading edge of the overall EM wave, which includes the wavelengths/frequencies which were detected by LIGO. The gamma rays are just gamma rays and may not have been generated at exactly the same instant as the lower energy EM waves detected by LIGO. They delays of the remaining EM spectrum could still be exactly as described. They're just wavelengths from the same high energy event that reached us later for a variety of reasons related to the mechanics of the event itself.

Delays claimed for the remaining EM spectrum from 10 hrs to 16 days, and not in order of wavelength, defy explanation.

Not IMO. The explanations offered at the news conference seemed logical. I really wouldn't expect every wavelength to reach us at exactly the same instant. That's not necessarily how it worked mechanically.

What I'm getting at is that the "gravitational wave' may in fact be an ordinary EM wavelength like all other photons. That would explain why they travel at the speed of light. I wouldn't get too caught up in worrying about why there were various delays from various wavelengths. There could be a variety of mechanical reasons why that is the case.

[Bengt Nyman]

What I'm getting at is that the gravitational wave may in fact be an ordinary EM wavelength like all other photons. That would explain why they travel at the speed of light ...

Agreed. And consequently it is not a gravitational wave.
There is a difference between the cause of gravity; http://www.dipole.se and the effects of gravity; ST, parts of GR etc.

[querious]

What I'm getting at is that the "gravitational wave' may in fact be an ordinary EM wavelength like all other photons.

LOL. You really think they built these GW detectors with a complete and total misunderstanding of the physics involved, and just got lucky? Lucky enough to design a highly sophisticated piece of equipment designed specifically to intercept their long-predicted signal? Sad - you were just saying how you wanted the EU community to gain some cred by not pooh-pooing this result, and then go and write that?

[querious]

I wouldn't get too caught up in worrying about why there were various delays from various wavelengths. There could be a variety of mechanical reasons why that is the case.

Or, you could just watch the video they created for INTERESTED people, and which I posted for your enlightenment, which explains the different sets of EM radiation, and their delays.

Here it is again...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrz_MdAJ4c8

[Michael Mozina]

What I'm getting at is that the "gravitational wave' may in fact be an ordinary EM wavelength like all other photons.

LOL. You really think they built these GW detectors with a complete and total misunderstanding of the physics involved, and just got lucky? Lucky enough to design a highly sophisticated piece of equipment designed specifically to intercept their long-predicted signal? Sad - you were just saying how you wanted the EU community to gain some cred by not pooh-pooing this result, and then go and write that?

Unless one is willing to completely write off the possibility of a "theory of everything" might one day tie all the known forces of nature together, and one is willing to write off all possibility of a QM definition of gravity one day replacing GR, it's irrational to rule out various possibilities to explain such observations IMO.

I'm quite happy to accept GR as it's written, and as Einstein taught it to his students. I'm even open to the existence of very dense objects, aka black holes, but like Einstein I tend to reject the concept of infinitely dense "point" objects due to the Pauli exclusion principle. I'm fine with the whole concept of gravitational waves. I'm also fine with LIGO's explanations as to why the various EM wavelengths arrived as they did and when they did too. I'm simply open to the possibility that a QM definition of gravity might one day replace GR theory as the "gravity theory of choice", so I have no reason to write off that possibility.

It certainly has nothing to do with worrying about my personal "street cred", or I never would have risked any "street cred" by complaining about LIGO's absurdly flawed methodology in the first place. I never would have promoted a cathode sun theory on this website and I never would have supported GR theory on this website either. I'm probably in the minority here in terms of being one of the few EU/PC proponents that actually accepts GR theory, black hole theory and neutron star theory in the first place.

I don't "assume" LIGO made any mistakes in their last paper, either in theory, or in their design of the LIGO equipment. In fact I never even once questioned those things in the paper that I wrote. I simply entertain the possibility that gravity might indeed be related to EM field effects. I still prefer GR theory to "explain" gravity at the moment and I prefer a gravitational wave explanation for that last BNS star paper too.

Street cred is fleeting at best. I'm looking for "truth", wherever that leads me, and I don't need to believe that no other options are possible as you seem to require of me. Oh well. I don't much care what you think of me either.

I've said it many times now, but I'll repeat it again: I'm quite impressed with LIGO's last BNS paper. It's impressive to me that they could narrow down their search to 49 galaxies, prioritize them by size and nail it in three tries. IMO that demonstrates the validity of their methodology and their equipment. I'm happy for LIGO. That doesn't change my views on their "immaculate conception" claims one iota, nor does it mean I'm unwilling to look at other ways of explaining the same event.

By the way, I don't personally have any problem with LIGO's explanation of EM emission timing or their explanations for the various delays.

Before you go all "scientifically holier than thou" on us, maybe you could start by explaining why quasars show no signs of time dilation as LCMD theory predicts?

[Bengt Nyman]

Here it is again...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrz_MdAJ4c8

Thanks.
To what do they contribute the delays of white light, infrared, UV, x-rays, and radio ? The mechanism of the different stages of the merger itself, or differences in transmission time.

[Bengt Nyman]

I'm probably in the minority here in terms of being one of the few EU/PC proponents that actually accepts GR theory, black hole theory and neutron star theory in the first place.

It is time that GR theory be divided into two parts. The original, basic and indisputable GR about trains, flashlights, elevators, coordinate systems and observers, preferably read in its original form. The part that I am having problems with is the later part including ST when it turns into a failed search for gravity and a theory of everything.
I wish that A.E. had done what S.H. is doing during his search for gravity, refrain from self centered creationism.

[Michael Mozina]

Here it is again...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrz_MdAJ4c8

Thanks.
To what do they contribute the delays of white light, infrared, UV, x-rays, and radio ? The mechanism of the different stages of the merger itself, or differences in transmission time.

They attribute the differences to the mechanisms of the various stages, not the transmission time. They assume all light and GW's travel at C, but not all wavelengths are emitted at the same time in our direction. The use a 'cocoon' which surrounds the event, and directional jets to explain the various delays of various wavelengths.

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.

I agree that it's useful to look at GR as containing "optional" elements. Concepts like 'space expansion" and magical, invisible forms of matter and energy can of course be stuffed into a GR formula, but that gives them no credibility simply by virtue of being stuffed into a GR formula.

I'm fine with the creation of massive objects as a result of gravity, but I lack belief that all mass collects to a "point" due to the Pauli exclusion principle.

All the metaphysical elements of LCMD are attempting to "ride the coattails" of GR, but only if we let them. It's better that we embrace the elements of GR which are acceptable to us, and we just reject the elements of LCDM which are not acceptable rather than to toss out the whole GR baby and give the LCMD proponents the GR high ground. They don't deserve it. GR can be applied to any cosmology theory without introducing all the metaphysical mumbo-jumbo of LCDM.