Recent content by fropome

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    Hopefully not too stupid question about gravitational waves

    "In General Relativity, both photon and graviton follow geodesic paths through a 'warped space-time'." Is that because of their lack of mass, their sort-of-infinite speed (I know that's not quite right but I tend to think of it that way), or are the two properties so inextricably linked that...
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    Hopefully not too stupid question about gravitational waves

    Thanks for all this - it is starting to make more sense. So far my understanding is as follows: The force of gravity isn't transmitted in waves, but fluctuations in that force can be seen as waves. As a result, black holes capture gravitons, but this doesn't effect whether they have gravity. Am...
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    Hopefully not too stupid question about gravitational waves

    So gravity is effected by gravity - the top of my head just fell off. edit: Hang on. If gravitons are effected by gravity in a similar way to photons, then how could they get out of a black hole? But if they can't get out of a black hole then a black hole wouldn't have any gravity, and then the...
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    Hopefully not too stupid question about gravitational waves

    So... if gravity is effected by red shift, does that mean that it's effect is lessened at large distances? Do we have to take that into account in any of our models, or are the distances so great that the effect is swamped by other effects? Are gravitons thought to be affected by gravity as...
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    Hopefully not too stupid question about gravitational waves

    I'm with you so far, almost - thanks for the help! In a merging-star system like you mention, where would the waves originate? From the centre of gravity or some from each star? Is any piece of 'falling' matter radiating gravitational waves? So would gravity be effected by interference or...
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    Hopefully not too stupid question about gravitational waves

    I've been trying to get my head around relativity etc and struggling :-( However there's one thing that I can't find much information about at an interested-layman level - gravitational waves. They're described as having a frequency etc (being waves) and traveling at light speed. But if they...
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