Gravitational Waves Speed: Can We Observe It?

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Discussion Overview

The discussion centers on the challenges and possibilities of observing the speed of gravitational waves (GWs) using current technology. Participants explore the limitations of existing methods and the implications of recent measurements related to gravitational wave detection.

Discussion Character

  • Exploratory
  • Technical explanation
  • Debate/contested

Main Points Raised

  • Some participants express skepticism about the feasibility of observing the speed of gravitational waves with current technology, noting significant difficulties in measurement.
  • One participant mentions recent announcements from an international team regarding measurements, highlighting the challenges of analyzing data with extremely small path differences.
  • Another participant points out that direct measurement of the speed of gravitational waves is not possible due to the lack of controllable sources, suggesting that bounds on speed can only be inferred from other measurements, such as those from LIGO.
  • It is noted that current data is consistent with gravitational waves traveling at the speed of light, as predicted by general relativity, but the amount of data available is limited.
  • One participant mentions that with only two gravitational wave detectors, only upper bounds on their speed can be established, and emphasizes the need for more detectors to enable direct speed estimates.

Areas of Agreement / Disagreement

Participants generally agree on the difficulties of measuring the speed of gravitational waves and the limitations of current technology. However, there are competing views regarding the implications of recent measurements and the potential for future observations.

Contextual Notes

Participants acknowledge the dependence on the number of detectors and the nature of the sources of gravitational waves, which affects the ability to make direct measurements. There is also mention of the need for further data to draw more definitive conclusions.

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.
 

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