Was It All Just Noise? Independent Analysis Casts Doubt On LIGO's Detections (Synopsis)

"What's really exciting is what comes next. I think we're opening a window on the universe -- a window of gravitational wave astronomy." -Dave Reitze, executive director of LIGO

It revolutionized our view of the Universe when the LIGO annoucements – and we’re up to three, now – came out. They indicated the direct detection of gravitational waves from merging black holes, teaching us about a new population of stellar remnants, confirming the existence of gravitational waves, and showcasing yet another victory for Einstein’s General Relativity. But it all rests on one critical assumption: that what LIGO detected was a gravitational wave signal, not just noise in the detector.

The masses of known binary black hole systems, including the three verified mergers and one merger candidate coming from LIGO. Image credit: LIGO/Caltech/Sonoma State (Aurore Simonnet).

A critical test of this is whether the noise is truly random between detectors, as one would expect, or whether the noise is somehow correlated between the detectors, which would run contrary to expectations. An independent team from Denmark, outside of the LIGO collaboration, put this idea to the test, and what they found has cast significant doubts on the LIGO results.

The noise between the two detectors, in red and black, clearly exhibit correlations between them. Image credit: J. Creswell et al., arXiv:1706.04191v1.

There’s a new debate brewing surrounding gravitational waves, and while LIGO isn’t giving the new analysis much credence, the importance of getting it right, publicly, is too great to ignore. Sabine Hossenfelder explains.

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"... and showcasing yet another victory for Einstein’s General Relativity."

WOW! "Curved spacetime" must be true, now more than ever!
It's a great model for the geometry and math as a 'structure' for calculation and prediction of gravitational effects....

Even if there is no "fabric of spacetime" in the "real world" (Minkowski's glorious non-entity... Brown and Pooley) ...

like a bowling ball in a rubber sheet!... with mass "telling space how to curve" and curved space guiding masses (by what mechanics?) in their gravitational trajectories,... orbiting planets for instance.

"Yet another victory" for Einstein's curved spacetime??
No room for further criticism there!

By Michael Mooney (not verified) on 16 Jun 2017 #permalink

I’m not overly concerned about this criticism. Within a few years KAGRA and VIRGO will come on-line, and with the integration of data from these additional detectors, the degree of confidence in future detections should be much higher.

GR predictions have been tested in other ways (the geodetic effect and frame-dragging by Gravity Probe B, gravitational lensing, etc.) and has not yet been falsified.

I would like to quote Wikipedia (forgive me) to explain the "merely philosophical" concept of reification as it applies to the Minkowski/ Einstein *invention* of the math tool, "spacetime."

"Reification (also known as concretism, hypostatization, or the fallacy of misplaced concreteness) is a fallacy of ambiguity, when an abstraction (abstract belief or hypothetical construct) is treated as if it were a concrete real event or physical entity.[1][2] In other words, it is the error of treating something that is not concrete, such as an idea, as a concrete thing. A common case of reification is the confusion of a model with reality: "the map is not the territory".
That confusion is at the very core of relativity, but anyone who says so is called a crank and usually banned from most science forums.
Credit Ethan for allowing criticism, even "officially" discredited... like any and all criticism of the established Doctrine of Relativity.

Not to mention the doctrine of shrinking physical objects in the "special" theory of relativity where each observer creates a different "reality." ... (Oopse, I mentioned it again... but just for fun.)

By Michael Mooney (not verified) on 16 Jun 2017 #permalink

Sabine says “Making sense of somebody else’s data is tricky, as I can confirm from my own experience. Therefore, I think it is likely the Danish group made a mistake.”

It seems to me it shouldn’t be tricky, if you have the same data they have.

"The only good gravity wave, is a dead gravity wave" Andrew Jackson.

Sorry, just couldn't help myself.

By Omega Centauri (not verified) on 16 Jun 2017 #permalink

I have advised and written few times to LIGO make sure it is Gravitational Waves they have caught, because I have found THE MATRIX, I supposed Gravitational Waves everywhere in the Universe; however, LIGO reported those regular signals are too weak, LIGO needs strong Signals from Black Holes Collisions to catch GRAVITATIONAL WAVES, then I supposed LIGO is right with their equipments to determine it is in facts are GRAVITATIONAL WAVES. After the news from LIGO has been declared over Media, I think they made it after 100 years old Einstein Observations, even though, I sill have doubt, less doubt than before they reported all over the news, I still wonder why Gravitational Waves, GV, are that tough, they, GV, supposed to be everywhere in the Universe, because THE MATRIX is everywhere in the Universe as long as there is Space and there is Time and there is Quantum Time, then there must be MATRIX. And then the Gravitational Waves must depend on THE MATRIX to spread all over space, the further the waves thru Matrix, the lower the waves or weaker the waves, just like the waves in water . . . . Right at the moment, I write Waves in water, I realize MATRIX WAVES might not be the same way the Water is . . . . . . . . . . . I write next time . . . . . .
Matrix Oscillations make Waves; even though, Matrix Waves might be weaker than Waves from Black Holes Collisions.
LIGO WAVES are LG(waves 1) = 10^-19 meter = 10^-16 millimeter.
LG(waves 2) = 10^-18 meter = 10 ^-15 millimeter
If the Matrix Waves are weaker than LIGO WAVES or to the point LIGO cannot catch them, then Matrix waves must be:
MW (waves) < 10^-19 meter --à MW(waves) < 10^-16 millimeter
It might means MW (waves) < or = 10^-17 millimeter

Sketch of LIGO WAVES and MATRIX WAVES
THERE ARE 2 OR 3 OR MORE OTHER WAVES THAT LIGO CANNOT OR MIGHT NOT CATCH THEM, I WILL WRITE NEXT TIME!
Now somebody has doubt on LIGO; perhaps, he or she or they can be right, I will wait to hear from LIGO proves them wrong? Or say something?
Tho Huynh
Smallest Particles Dynamics.
Final Particles Mfg
Dark Matter Maker.
The Matrix Founder.
The Matrix President.
The Matran.
The Matrans.
Thhnfl@aol.com

By Tho Huynh (not verified) on 16 Jun 2017 #permalink

It wasn't "just noise". It was a FAKE:

"On September 16, 2010, a false signal - a so-called "blind injection" - was fed into both the Ligo and Virgo systems as part of an exercise to "test ... detection capabilities". [...] But take a look at the visualisation of the faked signal, says Dr Kiriushcheva, and compare it to the image apparently showing the collision of the twin black holes, seen on the second page of the recently-published discovery paper. "They look very, very similar," she says. "It means that they knew exactly what they wanted to get and this is suspicious for us: when you know what you want to get from science, usually you can get it." The apparent similarity is more curious because the faked event purported to show not a collision between two black holes, but the gravitational waves created by a neutron star spiralling into a black hole. The signals appear so similar, in fact, that Dr Kiriushcheva questions whether the "true" signal might actually have been an echo of the fake, "stored in the computer system from when they turned off the equipment five years before"."
http://www.thenational.ae/arts-life/the-review/why-albert-einstein-cont…

Pentcho Valev

By Pentcho Valev (not verified) on 16 Jun 2017 #permalink

One thing that struck me as very odd ( don't wanna use a harsher word) is this part:

"A major shortcoming of the Danish group’s analysis that they [LIGO] pointed out to me is that the Danes use methods based on tutorials from the LIGO Website, but these methods do not reach the quality standard of the – more intricate – data analysis that was used to obtain the published results."

what the hell... ?! You gather the data... you make that data available to the rest of the world.... you give the instructions on how to analyse that data, and now you say that the methods you gave are not the methods you yourself used?! This alone should be a huge red flag. Regardless of weather the detection was real, regardless if Danes did or did not make a mistake... what kind of b.s. is this?

By Sinisa Lazarek (not verified) on 16 Jun 2017 #permalink

What are these "tutorials from the LIGO website" which are mentioned? I'd imagined that the full statistical analysis that was done to the raw data from the detectors is described in full detail in the formal publications of the LIGO group, such as papers cited by the "Observation of Gravitational Waves from a Binary Black Hole Merger" paper Phys. Rev. Lett. 116, 061102 DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.116.061102 (I can't link to it directly because of that spam filter).

By Anonymous Coward (not verified) on 16 Jun 2017 #permalink

@SL

'more intricate data analysis … what kind of b.s. is this?'

Maybe they used some deep learing AI methodes to find a specific vibration correlation within the data, you know like how they can change one thing into something else, like for example how they turned these dinosaurs into plants: https://mobile.twitter.com/chrisrodley/status/875266719660482560/photo/1

By Elle H.C. (not verified) on 16 Jun 2017 #permalink

I'm a retired telecom system engineer so not knowledgeable on LIGO but interested. Noise has interesting and somewhat annoying properties in telecoms, One property is that noise does not correlate even with itself which is exactly how periodic signals are distinguished from noise when a correlation is used.
I don't understand how noise can correlate between two systems. If it correlates then to me it's not noise but a signal.

"I have advised and written few times to LIGO make sure it is Gravitational Waves they have caught, because I have found THE MATRIX,"

good job Neo! Now take the chill pill.

By Sinisa Lazarek (not verified) on 16 Jun 2017 #permalink

@ Elle

it doesn't matter what they used or how. What matters is whatever they used should be open to scrutiny by the rest of scientific community.

To give both groups benefit of doubt.. maybe they did publish the complete methodology in some paper which Danes missed. But I don't understand the reasoning of publishing a different methodology on their own website and then saying it's not the correct one.

By Sinisa Lazarek (not verified) on 16 Jun 2017 #permalink

@SL

They must have some kind of AI to go through all the data, pre-programmed to find something specific, no? What boggles me is, as addressed in the paper, how to filter out all that noise and identify what is 'real'. It makes me wonder if it will ever be possible to identify something. I was naively imagining they had a 'clear open channel' to listen to vibrations but this is apparently not the case. Anyway I am far from being an expert but the LIGO team should be able to clear this out, not sure why it's not happening, they claim that 'the paper can't be trusted', uh?!

This situation makes me think of the team(s) that claimed to have proven Quantum entanglement, but where there are a couple of 'loop holes' in the setup, and get a lot of criticism, here ther was almost none … It might be all a misunderstanding …

By Elle H.C. (not verified) on 16 Jun 2017 #permalink

@ Elle
"They must have some kind of AI to go through all the data, pre-programmed to find something specific, no?"

I know that "AI" is the buzz word in a lot of places these days, similar to "quantum" a decade or so ago. Personally, I don't see any need for it here or in any data crunching of this type.

Creating an algorithm and telling a computer to sift through data in order to find something, doesn't make it an AI. On the other hand, deep neural networks, machine learning etc (which are the basis for AI) are still in their infant stages, and putting them on a such a sensitive task as to claim grav. wave discovery without doing the analysis the old fashioned way would be very unprofessional. Nor have I heard of any claims or stories that AI had anything to do with this. Supercomputers for crunching.. sure, AI... doubt it.

By Sinisa Lazarek (not verified) on 17 Jun 2017 #permalink

@SL

'Creating an algorithm and telling a computer to sift through data in order to find something, doesn’t make it an AI.'

It depends, perhaps not, but setting up a DeepNet that learns to do this on its own, is.

So you can train one to look for specific patterns and you run your (double) data of the day through it. Preprocessing.

With signals that have such a short timeframe and so much noise, I am not sure if there are many other options.

'Supercomputers for crunching.. sure, AI… doubt it.'

There is nothing wrong with this. And it's already far from being 'infant'. I don't know if it was used here, but AI is used in many ways science-wise. To figure out the total mass of all the galaxies for instance, the technology is not very different from any face/object recognition AI, and can be based on a 'simple' Alexnet. Checkout this one for example: https://www.kaggle.com/c/galaxy-zoo-the-galaxy-challenge

By Elle H.C. (not verified) on 17 Jun 2017 #permalink

Detecting neutron star mergers is far more likely than detecting black hole mergers because even weak and inconclusive signals could be compared with Integral's data and become valid evidence in the end. The fact that only black hole mergers have been announced unequivocally proves that gravitational waves don't exist (LIGO's discovery is a fake). Faking black hole waves is safe and profitable while faking neutron star waves is dangerous - mergers of neutron stars emit light which means that Integral may expose the fraud.

By Pentcho Valev (not verified) on 17 Jun 2017 #permalink

@skl #5:

It seems to me it shouldn’t be tricky, if you have the same data they have.

My job as a computer programmer would be much easier if this were true. Data is stored in certain ways, and given certain relationships. The structure imposed on the data seems obvious to those who created it, but it can be difficult for others to interpret. In fact, in my experience, the more "raw" the dataset is, the harder it is to understand.

By Naked Bunny wi… (not verified) on 17 Jun 2017 #permalink

@Pentecho Valev: Gravitational waves are real. You talk about neutron star binaries. So please tell me, why is the orbit of the neutron star binary PSR B1913+16 decaying exactly according to the gravitational wave predictions of general relativity? Where is the gravitational potential energy of that system going as the neutron stars in it inspiral, if it isn't being radiated away as gravitational waves? There are a few other known neutron star binaries similar to PSR B1913+16 in our galaxy and they all behave in just the same way.

The LIGO collaboration has actually weighed in on the lack of such detections so far here:

https://arxiv.org/abs/1607.07456

It seems that they ought to be able to detect a neutron star merger at a distance of up to 300 million light years with the current equipment they have. That's a lot closer than the estimated distances of the black hole mergers they claim to have detected, since the gravitational waves emitted by a neutron star merger are weaker.

Neutron stars are generally created by supernovae, so unless there is also a way for a neutron star to be made without such a violent explosion, you'd expect neutron star binaries to be rare, and they are. Black holes on the other hand can be created without an explosion, as we saw in a recent article, so

By Anonymous Coward (not verified) on 17 Jun 2017 #permalink

(continuation of #21, pressed submit a little too soon)

...black hole binaries might actually be more common. An open cluster such as R136 in the Tarantula Nebula, which is full of extremely massive stars (including the current record holder R136a1 which weighs in at 315 solar masses) might wind up with many of the very massive stars in it later winking out directly into black holes just like N6946-BH1¸ with no explosion. So there you'll have a number of high-mass black holes close together, not pushed away from each other by violent explosions.

By Anonymous Coward (not verified) on 17 Jun 2017 #permalink

@Anonymous Coward: LIGO should have reported countless weak and inconclusive detections of signals of non-black hole origin which, after comparison with other observers' (e,g, Integral's) data, could have become confirmed discoveries. Constant public comparison of all LIGO's observations with other observers' data is the only honest behavior and LIGO folks know that:

"Before the Sept. 14 detection, LIGO scientists had focused their calculations on the mergers of neutron stars, not black holes. That's because neutron stars - the dense remnants of collapsed stars - had been observed already through other means, like electromagnetic radiation, and were, thus, more predictable, said Joseph Giaime, head of the LIGO Livingston Observatory and a professor of physics and astronomy at LSU."
http://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/news/communities/article_1c4abc2…

The unprecedented secrecy LIGO has established proves, unequivocally, that we have perhaps the most monumental (at least the most costly) fraud in the history of science.

By Pentcho Valev (not verified) on 17 Jun 2017 #permalink

@ Pentcho

It's one thing to question if LIGO did detect something, or even if they are honest or not... you're free to do that. But nothing concerning LIGO brings into question the existance of gravitational waves. We have plenty of indirect evidence for them regardless of LIGO, like Anonymus wrote.

By Sinisa Lazarek (not verified) on 17 Jun 2017 #permalink

@Sinisa Lazarek

We live in a schizophrenic world where theoreticians reject Einstein's absurd spacetime but greatly admire the ripples in spacetime faked by LIGO:

https://www.edge.org/response-detail/26563
Nobel Laureate David Gross observed, "Everyone in string theory is convinced...that spacetime is doomed. But we don't know what it's replaced by."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U47kyV4TMnE
Nima Arkani-Hamed (06:09): "Almost all of us believe that space-time doesn't really exist, space-time is doomed and has to be replaced by some more primitive building blocks."

https://edge.org/response-detail/25477
What scientific idea is ready for retirement? Steve Giddings: "Spacetime. Physics has always been regarded as playing out on an underlying stage of space and time. Special relativity joined these into spacetime... [...] The apparent need to retire classical spacetime as a fundamental concept is profound..."

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/splitting-time-from-space/
"Splitting Time from Space - New Quantum Theory Topples Einstein's Spacetime. Buzz about a quantum gravity theory that sends space and time back to their Newtonian roots."

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20727721.200-rethinking-einstein-…
"Rethinking Einstein: The end of space-time. It was a speech that changed the way we think of space and time. The year was 1908, and the German mathematician Hermann Minkowski had been trying to make sense of Albert Einstein's hot new idea - what we now know as special relativity - describing how things shrink as they move faster and time becomes distorted. "Henceforth space by itself and time by itself are doomed to fade into the mere shadows," Minkowski proclaimed, "and only a union of the two will preserve an independent reality." And so space-time - the malleable fabric whose geometry can be changed by the gravity of stars, planets and matter - was born. It is a concept that has served us well, but if physicist Petr Horava is right, it may be no more than a mirage."

https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22730370-600-why-do-we-move-forw…
"[George] Ellis is up against one of the most successful theories in physics: special relativity. It revealed that there's no such thing as objective simultaneity. [...] Rescuing an objective "now" is a daunting task."

Joao Magueijo, Faster Than the Speed of Light, p. 250: "Lee [Smolin] and I discussed these paradoxes at great length for many months, starting in January 2001. We would meet in cafés in South Kensington or Holland Park to mull over the problem. THE ROOT OF ALL THE EVIL WAS CLEARLY SPECIAL RELATIVITY. All these paradoxes resulted from well known effects such as length contraction, time dilation, or E=mc^2, all basic predictions of special relativity. And all denied the possibility of establishing a well-defined border, common to all observers, capable of containing new quantum gravitational effects." http://www.amazon.com/Faster-Than-Speed-Light-Speculation/dp/0738205257

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/jun/10/time-reborn-farewell-realit…
"And by making the clock's tick relative - what happens simultaneously for one observer might seem sequential to another - Einstein's theory of special relativity not only destroyed any notion of absolute time but made time equivalent to a dimension in space: the future is already out there waiting for us; we just can't see it until we get there. This view is a logical and metaphysical dead end, says Smolin."

https://www.amazon.com/Time-Reborn-Crisis-Physics-Universe-ebook/dp/B00…
"Was Einstein wrong? At least in his understanding of time, Smolin argues, the great theorist of relativity was dead wrong. What is worse, by firmly enshrining his error in scientific orthodoxy, Einstein trapped his successors in insoluble dilemmas..."

By Pentcho Valev (not verified) on 17 Jun 2017 #permalink

@Sinisa Lazarek

I sent another comment but there were too many references in it so it is now "awaiting moderation". The references show a schizophrenic picture: Nowadays most theoreticians reject Einstein's absurd spacetime but admire the ripples in spacetime faked by LIGO.

By Pentcho Valev (not verified) on 17 Jun 2017 #permalink

" Nowadays most theoreticians reject Einstein’s absurd spacetime"

most theoreticians? like who in example?

By Sinisa Lazarek (not verified) on 18 Jun 2017 #permalink

@ Pentcho

should have guessed... taking notions out of context and confusing quantum theory of gravity as rejecting spacetime.

You should realize that any and all quantum theories of gravity HAVE to yield same results as GR in macroscopic regime. In fact... that's how all of them are put to test.

I guess commenters on your own forum said enough already. Troll.

Searching for quantum theory of gravity like string theory and loop quantum gravity does is one thing... but for macroscopic regimes... none of them are questioning GR.. your statement "most theoreticians reject Einstein’s..." is a flat out lie.

By Sinisa Lazarek (not verified) on 18 Jun 2017 #permalink

"none of them are questioning GR"

They are questioning only special relativity? "The root of all the evil"? Or even special relativity is not questioned? You don't want to think about all this?

"Crimestop means the faculty of stopping short, as though by instinct, at the threshold of any dangerous thought. It includes the power of not grasping analogies, of failing to perceive logical errors, of misunderstanding the simplest arguments if they are inimical to Ingsoc, and of being bored or repelled by any train of thought which is capable of leading in a heretical direction. Crimestop, in short, means protective stupidity." http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/o/orwell/george/o79n/chapter2.9.html

By Pentcho Valev (not verified) on 18 Jun 2017 #permalink

Shannon Sims,
I read your linked critique. Thank you. You and Pentcho Valev may be interested in my ongoing criticisms of Ethan's posts on spacetime ("What Is Spacetime?") and SR regarding 'length contraction" and "time dilation." He stonewalled me on all challenges (including his obviously contradictory statements) and thinks all critics of relativity are cranks.

I have been following critics of relativity... and contributing where I can until banned... for decades, and it's good to see more critics here on SWAB. At least Ethan allows criticism, with the stated caveat as above ( that we are all cranks.)

By Michael Mooney (not verified) on 19 Jun 2017 #permalink

"At least Ethan allows criticism"

Not any criticism - only relatively innocent one. In another thread I said that, unlike special relativity, general relativity is not deductive. If this is true, the implications are catastrophic, Ethan knows that, and my comment will be "awaiting moderation" forever.

By Pentcho Valev (not verified) on 19 Jun 2017 #permalink

Pencho Valev,
@#35: Tthat's encouraging.
@#34: 'Not any criticism – only relatively innocent one."

My criticisms have not been "relatively innocent" but rather challenging the whole philosophical basis of SR's assumption that the length of physical objects depends on the frame of reference from which they are measured ("all frames being equally valid"... "it depends on whom you ask.") And I have consistently pointed out that time is is not an entity which "dilates"... just that clocks "tick" at variable rates after exposure to different forces (acceleration and gravity.) The same error of reification applies to "spacetime."
But of course all criticism of the Orthodox Doctrine of Spacetime is done by "cranks," to be ridiculed if not outright banned.

By Michael Mooney (not verified) on 20 Jun 2017 #permalink

"the length of physical objects depends on the frame of reference from which they are measured"

This is easy to disprove. Length contraction implies that unlimitedly long objects can gloriously be trapped, "in a compressed state", inside unlimitedly short containers:

http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Relativity/SR/barn_pole.html
John Baez: "These are the props. You own a barn, 40m long, with automatic doors at either end, that can be opened and closed simultaneously by a switch. You also have a pole, 80m long, which of course won't fit in the barn. [...] So, as the pole passes through the barn, there is an instant when it is completely within the barn. At that instant, you close both doors simultaneously, with your switch. [...] If it does not explode under the strain and it is sufficiently elastic it will come to rest and start to spring back to its natural shape but since it is too big for the barn the other end is now going to crash into the back door and the rod will be trapped in a compressed state inside the barn."

See, at 7:12 in the video below, how the train is trapped "in a compressed state" inside the tunnel:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xrqj88zQZJg
"Einstein's Relativistic Train in a Tunnel Paradox: Special Relativity"

It is not difficult to realize that trapping unlimitedly long objects inside unlimitedly short containers implies unlimited compressibility and drastically violates the law of conservation of energy. The unlimitedly compressed object, in trying to restore its original volume ("spring back to its natural shape"), would produce an enormous amount of work the energy for which comes from nowhere.

At 9:01 in the above video Sarah sees the train falling through the hole, and in order to save Einstein's relativity, the authors of the video inform the gullible world that Adam as well sees the train falling through the hole. However Adam can only see this if the train undergoes an absurd bending first, as shown at 9:53 in the video and in this picture:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/17/Ladder_paradox…

Clearly we have reductio ad absurdum: An absurd bending is required - it does occur in Adam's reference frame but doesn't in Sarah's. Conclusion: The underlying premise, Einstein's 1905 constant-speed-of-light postulate, is false.

By Pentcho Valev (not verified) on 20 Jun 2017 #permalink

To Pencho Lavev.
Pencho, but unlimited long objects can not reach extreme lengths as much as they squeeze?

Pencho Valev,
My favorite "thought experiment" disproving length contraction is this: A traveler approaches Earth at .86c and measures the length of its diameter to be about 4000 miles (half its proper length) in the direction of his approach.

By what physics does Earth physically shrink? Answer: there is none.
Or would it be just an **apparent** contraction due to the *image* of Earth carried by light to a traveler approaching light speed? Obviously the latter, but those indoctrinated by SR disavow the qualification, "apparent" and insist that the shrunken diameter is just as "valid" as the proper length measured from at rest, with Earth... as in orbit, measured by satellites.
How absurd is that? (Excuse me... its merely "counter-intuitive!") Common sense is also disavowed as a point of pride by SR theorists/ mathematicians.

By Michael Mooney (not verified) on 21 Jun 2017 #permalink

[Quote] A fisherman, an antirelativist can not afford bad English. [/ Quote]

True, but in this case it is not important whether one can write perfectly in English, but whether his arguments are strong :)

@Michael Mooney

This is doublethink - believing and teaching both thesis and antithesis. It not only destroys human rationality but makes the process irreversible - the affected person will never restore his/her sanity. See this for instance (the turning-around acceleration is both crucial and immaterial):

http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~djmorin/chap11.pdf
David Morin, Introduction to Classical Mechanics With Problems and Solutions, Chapter 11, p. 14: "Twin A stays on the earth, while twin B flies quickly to a distant star and back. [...] For the entire outward and return parts of the trip, B does observe A's clock running slow, but enough strangeness occurs during the turning-around period to make A end up older. Note, however, that a discussion of acceleration is not required to quantitatively understand the paradox..."

Paralyzing isn't it? No rational criticism is possible. The original author is Einstein of course. In 1911 he explained to the gullible world that the "sudden change of direction" is immaterial with respect to the clock (twin) paradox:

http://einsteinpapers.press.princeton.edu/vol3-trans/368
Albert Einstein 1911: "The clock runs slower if it is in uniform motion, but if it undergoes a change of direction as a result of a jolt, then the theory of relativity does not tell us what happens. The sudden change of direction might produce a sudden change in the position of the hands of the clock. However, the longer the clock is moving rectilinearly and uniformly with a given speed in a forward motion, i.e., the larger the dimensions of the polygon, the smaller must be the effect of such a hypothetical sudden change."

In 1918 the "sudden change of direction" involving acceleration, which had been immaterial a couple of years before, became crucial and produced a miraculous HOMOGENEOUS gravitational field:

http://sciliterature.50webs.com/Dialog.htm
Albert Einstein 1918: "A homogeneous gravitational field appears, that is directed towards the positive x-axis. Clock U1 is accelerated in the direction of the positive x-axis until it has reached the velocity v, then the gravitational field disappears again. An external force, acting upon U2 in the negative direction of the x-axis prevents U2 from being set in motion by the gravitational field. [...] According to the general theory of relativity, a clock will go faster the higher the gravitational potential of the location where it is located, and during partial process 3 U2 happens to be located at a higher gravitational potential than U1. The calculation shows that this speeding ahead constitutes exactly twice as much as the lagging behind during the partial processes 2 and 4."

Today's theoretical physicists prefer Einstein 1911 argument and teach that the "sudden change of direction" involving acceleration is immaterial, but an important minority sticks to Einstein's 1918 argument and teaches that the "sudden change of direction" is crucial.

By Pentcho Valev (not verified) on 21 Jun 2017 #permalink

quote

Aries's experiment with the water-filled telescope proves that the telescope does not need to be tilted, it is in full support that star aberration takes place in an area high above where the etheric environment is entangled in the ground. Consequently, the arguments of unattainability of the etheric environment arising from the aura picture are unfounded and erroneous. Aberration does not arise in the telescope's eyepiece, and high up there is the boundary of entraining the etheric environment. Here is where this video is explained.https: //www.youtube.com/watch? V = -Ov5mbeUKrU

Pentcho Valev,
Regarding your last statement at #43:
I have argued for many years that SR's failure to consider the history of acceleration of each clock (or theoretical person) to reach higher speeds is a denial intentionally ignoring the physical forces affecting each clock (or future astronaut's aging process.)

Then they claim that it's all about immediate velocity "traveling through time and space" ... and the "spacetime" through which they travel changes for each traveler and his individual clock. Forget that a standard year, for Earthlings, is one orbit around the Sun, and on down to very small fractions of seconds on clocks synchronized with Earth's revolutions and orbits.

That would be "ABSOLUTE TIME!" in violation of the doctrine of "time dilation" and therefore a fundamental criticism of SR's reification of time... And of the "prime directive" that EVERYTHING IS RELATIVE!
Which, btw, is forbidden in the world of relativity physics as taught in textbooks to nodding undergrads trying to choke down such absurdities to pass their tests.

By Michael Mooney (not verified) on 22 Jun 2017 #permalink

Major updates! LIGO is all noise.

Here’s the solid “Comments on our paper, ‘On the time lags of the LIGO signals’” response to the rather lame and condescending LIGO response:
http://www.nbi.ku.dk/gravitational-waves/gravitational-waves.html
They conclude:
“It would appear that the 7 ms time delay associated with the GW150914 signal is also an intrinsic property of the noise. The purpose in having two independent detectors is precisely to ensure that, after sufficient cleaning, the only genuine correlations between them will be due to gravitational wave effects. The results presented here suggest this level of cleaning has not yet been obtained and that the identification of the GW events needs to be re-evaluated with a more careful consideration of noise properties.”
Not looking good for LIGO. Not at all. And they have yet to respond to this response.
Also, it is quite remarkable that the vast inside team is making errors on this which the tiny outside team is correcting: Jackson et al: “Subsequent discussions with Ian Harry have revealed that this failure was due to several errors in his code. After necessary corrections were made, his script reproduces our results. His published version was subsequently updated.”

By Dr. Steve H (not verified) on 10 Jul 2017 #permalink

I believe there is no frame-dragging effect of gravity on mass, only on electromagnetic energy!
Curiously, the Lense-Thirring effect in Gravity Probe B has the same value than the geodetic effect of the Earth around the Sun.
NASA error?
An interesting experiment!
Understanding Gravity Probe-B experiment without math
https://molwick.com/en/gravitation/082-gravity-probe-b.html

Regarding gravitational waves, we should bear in mind there are various meanings of the expression gravitational waves, and those detected by LIGO experiment are not the cause of gravity force. However, they are most probably related to the so called expansion of the Universe. https://molwick.com/en/gravitation/072-gravitational-waves.html