May 09, 2019
The Fingerprints of God
Timothy Birdnow
Here is an interesting bit of science. Gravity waves - which were just detected a few years ago although scientists knew they had to exist for a long time - may leave "fingerprints" that make indirect detection of waves that have already passed visible.
From the Livescience article:
Gravity waves are essentially "ripples" in the fabric of the space-time continuum. Einstein predicted their existence in General Relativity. Just as large masses can "bend' space-time to create gravitational fields, so too can these masses, or catastrophic events, send waves moving through the fabric of our Universe.
How do you detect them?
Right now, scientists can detect gravitational waves by building observatories that fire very still and stable laser beams over long distances. When the beams wiggle slightly, it's a sign that a gravitational wave has passed. By studying the wiggles, physicists can measure the waves. The first such detection was in 2015, and since then, the technology has improved such that the observatories detect gravitational waves as often as once a week.
Those waves originate from massive events, like when black holes and neutron stars collide very far away in space. By the time they reach Earth, though, the waves are barely noticeable. Their long-term effects are even less evident.
But the mirrors in detectors are constantly measured in such a precise way that, over time, the shifts that the gravitational waves cause might become so intense that researchers will be able to spot them. The researchers came up with a mathematical model that predicts how much the mirrors should shift over time with each wave passing.
The other methods humans might use to detect these long-term effects involve atomic clocks and spinning particles.
Two atomic clocks placed some distance from each other would experience a gravitational wave differently, including its time-dilation effects: Because time would be slowed more for one clock than the other, subtle differences in their readings after a wave passed might reveal a memory of the wave in the local universe.
Finally, a tiny spinning particle might change its behavior before and after a wave's passing. Suspend it in a chamber in a lab, and measure its rate and direction of spin; then measure it again after a wave passes. The difference in the particle's behavior would reveal another kind of memory of the wave.
End excerpt.
These are very miniscule events, and they move fast, but if they leave a permanent record in the fabric of space we may be able to detect them.
It has been theorized that a civilization far more advanced than ourselves, especially one that might have figured out how to artificially generate gravity or control small black holes (it's possible; there are black holes that are the size of molecules and they were formed during the Big Bang; you could charge them and use magnetic fields to manipulate them) to vibrate and thus create modulated gravity waves - the perfect communication system as the waves would go through everything and thus could be used for very long distance communication . Of course this would still be speed-of-light communicaton, so contact with an alien species via gravity waves would be a long process. In fact, they may well be extinct when we receive their messages. But it is interesting to speculate about.
There are more fanciful ideas in science fiction; riding a gravity wave, as a propulsion system, for instance. I rather doubt such a thing will be practical, but it's fun to think about.
At any rate, this is interesting from a philosophical/theological perspective; it's as if the Universe "remembers" every event, as though it were a part of some greater mind. Food for thought.
Here is an interesting bit of science. Gravity waves - which were just detected a few years ago although scientists knew they had to exist for a long time - may leave "fingerprints" that make indirect detection of waves that have already passed visible.
From the Livescience article:
The universe might "remember" gravitational waves long after they've passed.
That's the premise of a theoretical paper published April 25 in the journal Physical Review D. Gravitational waves, faint ripples in space and time that humanity has only in the past few years managed to detect, tend to pass very quickly. But the authors of the paper showed that after the waves pass, they might leave a region slightly altered — leaving behind a sort of memory of their crossing.
These changes, which the researchers termed "persistent gravitational wave observables," would be even fainter than the gravitational waves themselves, but those effects would last longer. Objects might be shifted slightly out of place. The positions of particles drifting through space might be altered. Even time itself might end up slightly out of sync, running briefly at different speeds in different parts of Earth.
Read the paper's abstract here.That's the premise of a theoretical paper published April 25 in the journal Physical Review D. Gravitational waves, faint ripples in space and time that humanity has only in the past few years managed to detect, tend to pass very quickly. But the authors of the paper showed that after the waves pass, they might leave a region slightly altered — leaving behind a sort of memory of their crossing.
These changes, which the researchers termed "persistent gravitational wave observables," would be even fainter than the gravitational waves themselves, but those effects would last longer. Objects might be shifted slightly out of place. The positions of particles drifting through space might be altered. Even time itself might end up slightly out of sync, running briefly at different speeds in different parts of Earth.
Gravity waves are essentially "ripples" in the fabric of the space-time continuum. Einstein predicted their existence in General Relativity. Just as large masses can "bend' space-time to create gravitational fields, so too can these masses, or catastrophic events, send waves moving through the fabric of our Universe.
How do you detect them?
Right now, scientists can detect gravitational waves by building observatories that fire very still and stable laser beams over long distances. When the beams wiggle slightly, it's a sign that a gravitational wave has passed. By studying the wiggles, physicists can measure the waves. The first such detection was in 2015, and since then, the technology has improved such that the observatories detect gravitational waves as often as once a week.
Those waves originate from massive events, like when black holes and neutron stars collide very far away in space. By the time they reach Earth, though, the waves are barely noticeable. Their long-term effects are even less evident.
But the mirrors in detectors are constantly measured in such a precise way that, over time, the shifts that the gravitational waves cause might become so intense that researchers will be able to spot them. The researchers came up with a mathematical model that predicts how much the mirrors should shift over time with each wave passing.
The other methods humans might use to detect these long-term effects involve atomic clocks and spinning particles.
Two atomic clocks placed some distance from each other would experience a gravitational wave differently, including its time-dilation effects: Because time would be slowed more for one clock than the other, subtle differences in their readings after a wave passed might reveal a memory of the wave in the local universe.
Finally, a tiny spinning particle might change its behavior before and after a wave's passing. Suspend it in a chamber in a lab, and measure its rate and direction of spin; then measure it again after a wave passes. The difference in the particle's behavior would reveal another kind of memory of the wave.
End excerpt.
These are very miniscule events, and they move fast, but if they leave a permanent record in the fabric of space we may be able to detect them.
It has been theorized that a civilization far more advanced than ourselves, especially one that might have figured out how to artificially generate gravity or control small black holes (it's possible; there are black holes that are the size of molecules and they were formed during the Big Bang; you could charge them and use magnetic fields to manipulate them) to vibrate and thus create modulated gravity waves - the perfect communication system as the waves would go through everything and thus could be used for very long distance communication . Of course this would still be speed-of-light communicaton, so contact with an alien species via gravity waves would be a long process. In fact, they may well be extinct when we receive their messages. But it is interesting to speculate about.
There are more fanciful ideas in science fiction; riding a gravity wave, as a propulsion system, for instance. I rather doubt such a thing will be practical, but it's fun to think about.
At any rate, this is interesting from a philosophical/theological perspective; it's as if the Universe "remembers" every event, as though it were a part of some greater mind. Food for thought.
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at
08:13 AM
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