Astronomy ... gravitational waves

[mikechell 0]

Before anyone jumps in my poop ... this is "The Lodge". So, we can talk about non-fly fishing information.

Any astronomers, mathematicians or physicist in here?

I'm am deeply interested in the workings of the universe. Just never quite had the ability (brains) to make it a profession.

So, now I am excited with the latest developments of gravitational waves from neutron star or black hole collisions.

But I have a question I can't seem to find an answer for. According to the math, our observation of object nearing the event horizon will slow until it seems to stop moving just before disappearing. If that object could observe the universe, it would see everything speed, hundreds of thousands of years passing in the blink of an eye.

And yet, the recording of gravitational waves from the collision of two black holes took only one second.

 

Shouldn't it have taken a near infinite amount of time to complete the collision?

 

Ponder that while you sleep tonight, or eat breakfast in the morning.

[Poopdeck 0]

rocket science and brain surgery fill up my free time but I often ponder if two black holes meet when nobody is around does their meeting make a sound?

[mikechell 0]

" ... if two black holes meet when nobody is around does their meeting make a sound?"

Hey! I can answer that question ... yes! In fact, the sound can still be heard a few billion years later, as noted above!

 

Same thing with that stupid tree in the forest. The vibrations we associate with sound are created, whether anyone's there to hear them or not.

 

And the egg/chicken thing. Evolution doesn't happen in the living adult, but in the developing embryo ... so the egg definitely came first.

 

Rocket science is easy, fuel and oxygen combine to produce thrust.

 

Brain surgery ... okay, that one is a little tougher. Can't describe it in one line.

[afraid not 0]

"Brain surgery ... okay, that one is a little tougher. Can't describe it in one line. "

 

I know what you mean, it took me about three months to get the hang of it.

[mikechell 0]

[saltydancindave 0]

" ... if two black holes meet when nobody is around does their meeting make a sound?"

Hey! I can answer that question ... yes! In fact, the sound can still be heard a few billion years later, as noted above!

 

Same thing with that stupid tree in the forest. The vibrations we associate with sound are created, whether anyone's there to hear them or not.

 

And the egg/chicken thing. Evolution doesn't happen in the living adult, but in the developing embryo ... so the egg definitely came first.

 

Rocket science is easy, fuel and oxygen combine to produce thrust.

 

Brain surgery ... okay, that one is a little tougher. Can't describe it in one line.

Cowabunga dude ! Gravitational wave riding when collisions have surfs up~~~~~~~~

[Bimini15 0]

The short answer is yes. The even shorter answer is no.

[Steeldrifter 0]

 

 

Sorry couldn't resist

[ben bell 0]

Like my old fishing buddy used to say "maybe it,s all in your imagination"

[mikechell 0]

I prefer Physics Girl ...

 

... to physics Sheldon.

 

But I DO like "Big Bang Theory!"

 

[WJG 0]

I don't think it requires rocket surgery, but if a married man talks in the forest where no one can hear him, is he still wrong?

[flytire 0]

[Hazathor 0]

Our "second" long outside observation occurred at the moment of event horizon cross-over. From my limited and possibly wrong understanding, in your scenario when the observed object paused at the event horizon, that was not the time the gravitational waves were recorded but the moment it crossed the actually event horizon.

 

I'm very into this stuff too Mike, every time I re-read something like Stephen Hawking's "Universe in a Nutshell" or "Brief history of Time" I feel like I understand it a little better, but complete understanding is far out of reach for my armchair astronomy.

[chugbug27 0]

Once in a while I'll read a book like A Brief History of Time, or The ABC's of Relativity, and I swear I understand everything I'm reading as I read it, and I do enjoy it, but even moments later, I could not for the life of me explain any truly substantial part of what I've read or apply any significant part of it in a meaningful or reliable way. It's just so twisted. It defies common sense.... A black hole sucks everything in, and the big bang exploded everything out, and in between is a universe of space and time, condensed by mass, which can be observed only at the speed of light no matter which direction it travels in, and which at its smallest quantum exists as stable matter but can be located only as a probability and can be disappeared by anti-matter. Got that. But beyond that, in trying to apply it or even remember or explain what that means, my sober brain ceases to serve me very well, or at all.

 

Makes me feel like going fishing.

[mikechell 0]

Hazathor, I'm with you on that ... we got the final second of the collision. But that may mean that the collision started millions of years earlier. It's also possible that we got the signal not when the two event horizons collided, but when the two singularities actually became one. Gravitational waves might not be trapped by the gravity of the black hole.

 

Chugbug, I'm on the fence about a few things.

1) I do not believe time can flow backwards. Nor can we travel backwards in time. Causality cannot be reversed, you can't un-burn a match.

2) I believe time existed before the big bang ... there was just nothing to measure it against. It will continue long after the universe dissipates and cools to non-existence. It will still be ticking on when the forces that created the Big Bang creates another one.