High School Gravitational Waves Speed: Can We Observe It?

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SUMMARY

The discussion centers on the challenges of observing the speed of gravitational waves (GWs) with current technology. An international team recently confirmed findings published in a journal, indicating that the path difference measured was on the order of 1.0*E-18 m. Currently, gravitational wave detectors like LIGO provide indirect evidence suggesting that GWs travel at the speed of light, consistent with General Relativity (GR). However, the limited number of detectors restricts the ability to make direct measurements, necessitating further advancements in detection technology.

PREREQUISITES
  • Understanding of General Relativity (GR)
  • Familiarity with gravitational wave detection technology, specifically LIGO
  • Knowledge of measurement precision in physics
  • Basic concepts of wave propagation and speed
NEXT STEPS
  • Research advancements in gravitational wave detection technologies beyond LIGO
  • Explore methods for measuring the speed of gravitational waves directly
  • Study the implications of gravitational waves traveling at the speed of light
  • Investigate the impact of additional gravitational wave detectors on measurement accuracy
USEFUL FOR

Physicists, astrophysicists, and researchers interested in gravitational wave phenomena and the implications of their speed on theoretical physics.

KarminValso1724
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To me, it seems that with our current technology it would be difficult to observe the speed of gravitational waves. Can anyone correct me if I am wrong?
 
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KarminValso1724 said:
To me, it seems that with our current technology it would be difficult to observe the speed of gravitational waves. Can anyone correct me if I am wrong?

no doubt about difficulties...but it was announced recently by an international team of 'measurement' people and about three /five months of data analysis and sifting through the huge reading...check and recheck it was confirmed and published in journal. the path difference was of the order of 1.0*E-18 m so the difficulty is very much there.
 
KarminValso1724 said:
it seems that with our current technology it would be difficult to observe the speed of gravitational waves

We don't have a way to directly measure the speed of gravitational waves because we don't have a source of them that we can control experimentally, in order to turn it on or off at will and make measurements. The best we can do is to extract bounds on the speed from other measurements, such as the ones recently made by LIGO. So far all the data is consistent with GWs moving at the speed of light, which is what GR predicts. But there isn't very much data.
 
We've currently only got two gravitational wave detectors. This only let's us put an upper bound on their speed (1.7c at the moment, I think) since we don't know where they are coming from. There is some indirect evidence that they travel at the speed of light, in that there was no dispersion.

When we have more detectors, direct estimates of the speed will be possible.
 

Thread 'EPR revisited'

In an inertial frame of reference (IFR), there are two fixed points, A and B, which share an entangled state $$ \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}(|0>_A|1>_B+|1>_A|0>_B) $$ At point A, a measurement is made. The state then collapses to $$ |a>_A|b>_B, \{a,b\}=\{0,1\} $$ We assume that A has the state ##|a>_A## and B has ##|b>_B## simultaneously, i.e., when their synchronized clocks both read time T However, in other inertial frames, due to the relativity of simultaneity, the moment when B has ##|b>_B##...
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