B Gravitational Wave Communication System

AI Thread Summary
Transmitting information through gravitational waves presents significant challenges due to their extreme weakness and the vast amounts of mass required to generate detectable signals. The development of a gravitational wave communication system would need to mimic existing radio communication technologies, including gravitational oscillators and amplifiers. However, practical issues arise, such as the difficulty of creating strong enough gravitational waves for effective communication on Earth. Additionally, gravitational waves travel at the speed of light, raising questions about the efficiency of using them compared to conventional radio waves. Overall, while theoretically possible, the practical implementation of gravitational wave communication appears highly complex and potentially unfeasible.
alan123hk
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Would it be possible to transmit information through gravitational waves?

It must be a giant leap for mankind if we can utilize gravitational waves for communication since the electromagnetic spectrum for communication is a scarce resource and not much space is left.

I imagine that the development process of such gravitational wave communication system be somehow like what we have done for our sophisticated radio communication system, there will be gravitational oscillator, low noise gravitational amplifier,...etc, would it be a silly and naive ideas ?
 
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alan123hk said:
Would it be possible to transmit information through gravitational waves?

It must be a giant leap for mankind if we can utilize gravitational waves for communication since the electromagnetic spectrum for communication is a scarce resource and not much space is left.

I imagine that the development process of such gravitational wave communication system be somehow like what we have done for our sophisticated radio communication system, there will be gravitational oscillator, low noise gravitational amplifier,...etc, would it be a silly and naive ideas ?
in principal, of course. What practical issues do you see with the Tx side of a gravitational wave transmission?
 
Gravitational waves are extremely weak, it is literally the warping of space time continuum. Try communicating with water waves then try making waves in a 10 m thick steel wall.Theoretically we should be able to transmit information in both cases but the latter is obviously much more difficult.Infact Einstein was highly sceptical that we would ever detect gravitational waves due to there weakness.

Secondly, to transmit information using gravitational waves we need vast amounts of mass and then oscillate these masses up and down to cause fluctuations in space ( I presume) .I recently went to a lecture at UWA where they talked about the recent discoveries of gravitational waves , I was gobsmacked by the masses of the interacting objects.These were black holes , often rotating, joining up They have masses ranging from about 5 to several tens of solar masses.I don't know about you but we don't have that type of mass lying around.

Finally, gravitational waves travel at the speed of light ,according to GR, hence why waste all that time when I can send radio waves?
 
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berkeman said:
in principal, of course. What practical issues do you see with the Tx side of a gravitational wave transmission?

Dear Berkeman,
Yes, you are absolutely right.
It seems that extremely difficult or almost impossible to build a safe system which can create strong enough gravitational wave for communication on earth.
 
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