> On May 23, 2016, at 7:31 PM, Tim <xxxxxx@little-possums.net> wrote: > > Not at all. Gravitational waves corresponding to highly nonlinear > changes in the structure of spacetime (e.g. opening a connection from > jumpspace) should be expected to be astronomically greater in > magnitude than everything else. Why? I may be visualizing this completely wrong, but the analogy I’m thinking is a rock placed (not thrown) halfway into a pond. That sets up a ripple as displaced water pushes out. if the rock is moved, qualitatively different but quantitatively equal displacement happens. Black holes colliding are like shooting the rock into the pond from orbit. > Waves associated with ordinary movement are ridiculously tiny. In > ordinary circumstances, conservation of energy-momentum means that > almost all of the field variations cancel, and the speeds and > accelerations that can ordinarily occur make the rates of change of > quadrupole moments microscopic. If the whole planet Jupiter started > accelerating at 6 gees out of the solar system, LIGO probably wouldn't > register a thing. Yeah, but if you have an interferometer with, say 100Km, or 10,000km arms? With TL12 or TL14 scale weapons-grade lasers? From LIGO’s website: "And just as it is impossible to build a 1120 km-long interferometer, building a 750 kW laser is also a practical impossibility.” Not in the OTU! Hell, considering the general gunbunny-ish nature of the TU, 750KW lasers are probably commonly used as laser pointers. (well, perhaps laser pointers for Disaster Area concerts :-) Anyway, I’d expect that truly gargantuan-scale instruments can be built and maintained in the OTU. cheap and simple travel, coupled with OTU-level tech would let you build telescopes with truly enormous light-collecting ability: 50KM primary mirror, anyone? a MMT with 7 50km mirrors? And that’s just visualizing that tech with our techniques. If you can focus lasers with gravitic tech, well, aside from being Third Law magic, it opens enormous opportunities for doing photon collecting. -- Bruce Johnson University of Arizona College of Pharmacy Information Technology Group Institutions do not have opinions, merely customs
