Gravitational Wave Megathread |
- Gravitational Wave Megathread
- What is Gravitational Wave and why is it so important?
- Why do i get hungry and then, without eating, it goes away?
- What would be the consequences of a global, significant and sustained population decrease on the economy?
- When looking into space with a basic telescope, most of what you'll see will be stars, right? So what is the magnification threshold you have to pass to where everything you see are entire, separate galaxies?
- Are there alternatives to randomized double blind trials when such trials would be unethical?
- Why can OLED tvs be so thin compared to a LED tv?
- Is another Yellowstone brewing in Ethiopia?
- Does a baby pick up sign language like it does a spoken language?
- Why does sweat on various parts of the body smell so different?
- How do we measure ocean wave direction, speed and intensity?
- could moon shadows on Jupiter cause wind spots over long periods of time?
- Did the Ostrich ever have a flying ancestor, or does it have yet to evolve flight?
- Are there stars that have begun to collapse into black holes, but stabilize before they fully complete the transition?
- What determines the Strength of a Magnet?
- How can nicotine and THC molecules stay intact in burning temperatures?
- How is the ozone depletion potential (ODP) of CFCs and other ozone destructing molecules measured?
- How do our brains process the directional source of a sound?
- Why is inflammation due to injury considered a bad thing?
- Could carcinogens play a role in evolution?
- Does quinine fade when under extended UV light exposure?
- What happens on a cellular level during an allergic reaction to something?
| Posted: 11 Feb 2016 06:00 AM PST Hi everyone! We are very excited about the upcoming press release (10:30 EST / 15:30 UTC) from the LIGO collaboration, a ground-based experiment to detect gravitational waves. This thread will be edited as updates become available. We'll have a number of panelists in and out (who will also be listening in), so please ask questions! Links:
FAQ:
The source of gravitational waves detectable by human experiments are two compact objects orbiting around each other. LIGO observes stellar mass objects (some combination of neutron stars and black holes, for example) orbiting around each other just before they merge (as gravitational wave energy leaves the system, the orbit shrinks).
Gravitational waves travel at the speed of light (wiki).
The 1993 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded for the indirect detection of gravitational waves from a double neutron star system, PSR B1913+16. In 2014, the BICEP2 team announced the detection of primordial gravitational waves, or those from the very early universe and inflation. A joint analysis of the cosmic microwave background maps from the Planck and BICEP2 team in January 2015 showed that the signal they detected could be attributed entirely to foreground dust in the Milky Way.
No. More precisely, many things will emit gravitational waves, but they will be so incredibly weak that they are immeasurable. It takes very massive, compact objects to produce already tiny strains. For more information on the expected spectrum of gravitational waves, see here.
Here is a nice and concise review.
Here is a recent /r/askscience discussion answering just that! Stay tuned for updates! Edits:
[link] [comments]  |
| What is Gravitational Wave and why is it so important? Posted: 10 Feb 2016 10:04 AM PST I am curious, not scientist... And my mind tries to conceive the idea of empty space being fabric that ripples like water. Anyhow, what is it? What would it mean if it is proven to exist? [link] [comments]  |
| Why do i get hungry and then, without eating, it goes away? Posted: 10 Feb 2016 07:07 AM PST Did my body just say "uuugh, you know what, fuck it, you're right: Don't feed yourself! You're not hungry anymore, because i just started eating stored fats" How is it possible to be hungry for an hour and then it just magically disappear for the next 3-4 hrs? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 10 Feb 2016 10:36 AM PST Would it necessarily imply economic collapse? Deflation? Can economic growth be possible in such conditions; if so how? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 10 Feb 2016 12:55 PM PST |
| Are there alternatives to randomized double blind trials when such trials would be unethical? Posted: 10 Feb 2016 10:45 AM PST Hello all, so this has come from an interesting debate, but I need to explain it first with an analogy. First, imagine a person who wanted to test the theory that removing a malignant tumor would be helpful to a cancer patient. Following a double blind trial, they then ask a surgeon to remove only half of the tumors from a group of cancer patients and not tell them which got the "placebo treatment" of just a surgical scar. You can see how such a study would never make it past the IRB. However, this is a very real issue in studies of my condition. I'm transgender and at last report we had a 46/42% attempted suicide rate which is greatly elevated over the national average, so it's safe to say that our condition is life threatening. However, the standard treatment for gender dysphoria is transition, and while there is a large body of work suggesting that transition is beneficial to trans people, there remain calls for more controlled trials. However, the statistics suggest and I can personally attest that gender dysphoria is extremely unpleasant to the point of being life threatening and trans people will be quite miserable when denied transitional care to the point of it being dangerous to the control group. Also the effects of hormone therapy are rather obvious and difficult to mimic with a placebo (growth of breasts and facial hair are obvious). Thus we have a conundrum. How do you test the effectiveness if the standard controls are functionally difficult and unethical? [link] [comments]  |
| Why can OLED tvs be so thin compared to a LED tv? Posted: 10 Feb 2016 11:18 AM PST Ive looked up some stuff on OLED and what amazes me is how thin they can be. Is this because of the organic layer and why does the organic layer work this way? [link] [comments]  |
| Is another Yellowstone brewing in Ethiopia? Posted: 10 Feb 2016 08:28 AM PST I am by no means a geologist or anything, but Ethiopia is rippling apart from what i've read. Whats the time frame of something like this? Is this an extinction level event? [link] [comments]  |
| Does a baby pick up sign language like it does a spoken language? Posted: 10 Feb 2016 09:48 AM PST It's well known that when your born you just pick up your parents native spoken language/s through the process of natural language learning. There is some research to suggest that this process begins when before you are born, when you are in the womb. This would speed up the process of learning a spoken language but this obviously couldn't happen with a non verbal language. What I want to know is, has there been any research into non verbal languages and how and if young children pick up these languages? [link] [comments]  |
| Why does sweat on various parts of the body smell so different? Posted: 10 Feb 2016 08:31 AM PST As we go about our day, we tend to sweat. I understand why we do, and also to some extent why we sweat where we sweat. But one question has bugged me the last couple of days:
Why do different hotspots for sweating have different scents? The armpits have the normal sweat smell (metallic, kinda onion-y feel to it), sweaty feet resembles expensive cheese that no one actually likes, the groin has the very distinctive smell of sex (depending on gender), and the buttcrack tends to smell sour and somehow reminds me personally of peeling a green banana (pre-ripe). Anyone care to explain why these areas smell so differently? And maybe also elaborate on the different areas? Thanks in advance.
tldr; hotspots for sweat smell very different. Why? [link] [comments]  |
| How do we measure ocean wave direction, speed and intensity? Posted: 10 Feb 2016 12:00 PM PST So I've been staring at this supposedly live animation of the Earth. I'm really confused as to how we can measure things like chemicals in the air and ocean currents etc. Are these done through complex mathematical calculations? Are there sensors scattered around the Earth to pick up on this, or via satellites? I suppose there must be some form of guess work involved, because I'd assume something like this would be used for weather forecasting. BTW that link contains some real eye-candy! [link] [comments]  |
| could moon shadows on Jupiter cause wind spots over long periods of time? Posted: 10 Feb 2016 11:36 AM PST Got the idea from this Reddit Post which shows a picture of Io's shadow on Jupiter. Io being one of Jupiter's moons. [link] [comments]  |
| Did the Ostrich ever have a flying ancestor, or does it have yet to evolve flight? Posted: 10 Feb 2016 09:22 AM PST |
| Posted: 10 Feb 2016 06:59 AM PST |
| What determines the Strength of a Magnet? Posted: 10 Feb 2016 10:33 AM PST |
| How can nicotine and THC molecules stay intact in burning temperatures? Posted: 10 Feb 2016 03:23 AM PST I'd expect the molecules to be incinerated. Or at least not keep so much molecular integrity that they maintain their mental effects when inhaled. [link] [comments]  |
| How is the ozone depletion potential (ODP) of CFCs and other ozone destructing molecules measured? Posted: 10 Feb 2016 06:55 AM PST Hello Reddit, I've been wondering if there was any way the ODPs of CFCs are measured, such as in rate of reaction, equilibrium position or anything of the sorts. I ask this after reading this database where some values are given for "ODP", but I have no idea how to represent this in terms of how it was measured. In my research I couldn't seem to find the methods used to calculate this ODPs either. Thank you in advance for your help! [link] [comments]  |
| How do our brains process the directional source of a sound? Posted: 10 Feb 2016 07:54 AM PST I know our ears are built to capture, reflect and funnel sound waves into the ear canal. If all the sounds are funneled into the ear canal as one aggregate vector, how is it possible that we can process the approximate location or direction the sound came from? [link] [comments]  |
| Why is inflammation due to injury considered a bad thing? Posted: 10 Feb 2016 07:37 AM PST Everything I've read (on the Internet, admittedly) says inflammation serves several purposes, most importantly beginning the healing process for whatever is wrong. Why does it seem like everyone always recommends taking an NSAID for injuries to reduce inflammation? [link] [comments]  |
| Could carcinogens play a role in evolution? Posted: 10 Feb 2016 04:59 AM PST I'm not very sure if what I'm asking even makes sense but from what I know, carcinogens basically cause cancer by messing with our DNA sequences right? Could the same "messing with DNA" lead to selectively advantageous traits as well? [link] [comments]  |
| Does quinine fade when under extended UV light exposure? Posted: 10 Feb 2016 06:40 AM PST Most people know about the blue glow from the quinine in tonic water and UV light. But I would like to know if extended UV light exposure damages or destroys the quinine? Say for example of the period of a few weeks. I have created a night light based around the Fallout game's Nuka Cola Quantum drink. While it looked fantastic when created, it seems to be dulling. I am curious if it is just me looking for things wrong with it, or if this is a standard reaction. Thanks everyone in advance. [link] [comments]  |
| What happens on a cellular level during an allergic reaction to something? Posted: 10 Feb 2016 10:22 AM PST |
| You are subscribed to email updates from AskScience: Got Questions? Get Answers.. To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google Inc., 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043, United States | |
