Post by thread:[OT]: Gravity waves sensor (not looking for practi

Hi! Years ago, I haver read something about gravity waves in an old Scientific American rewiew . Only for general knowledgemnt, not for making anything in the real word, I am curious about methods to detect this waves. I have read that is very difficult to detect it. A scientific named Weber have used masive cilinders in vacuum attached to microphones in the 1960s, but without success. Many sources of noise (vibrations, etc.) can mask this very week phenomenon... Well, what do you think about it? Cheers! Alejandro. -- http://www.piclist.com hint: PICList Posts must start with ONE topic: [PIC]:,[SX]:,[AVR]: ->uP ONLY! [EE]:,[OT]: ->Other [BUY]:,[AD]: ->Ads

> Years ago, I haver read something about gravity waves > in an old Scientific American rewiew . > > Only for general knowledgemnt, not for making anything > in the real word, I am curious about methods to detect this waves. > I have read that is very difficult to detect it. > > A scientific named Weber have used masive cilinders in > vacuum attached to microphones in the 1960s, but without success. > > Many sources of noise (vibrations, etc.) can mask this very week > phenomenon... The "traditional" modernish method is called a "Forward Detector" after a scientist who first produced them. He also happens to be a Science Fiction writer and also a source of leading scientific advice to some leading SciFi writers. You will find Forward Detectors in many scifi stories (including mine even :-) ). Larry Niven uses them here and there. His "The Hole Man" uses a quantum back hole as a gravity wave communicator and has a Forward Detector in the orbiting spaceship of the people who find it. NOTE! - the following description may be totally wrong :-) - I believe that the arrangement is a massive cylinder suspended in a vacuum (as you mention) with a small mass (probably a plate) suspended nearby with a very very small gap between. The gravity waves alter the gravitational field and the deflection of the small mass can be measured. Searching for "Forward Detector" and "gravity" will probably turn up references. You can actually visibly detect gravitational attraction between two masses - traditionally this is done by hanging two large lead spheres near each other and detecting the deflection from vertical of each s[here. This is VERY small and needs microscopic viewing. t seems to me that using a very small mass for one of the masses would do as well. F=Gm1m2/R^2. If you make one mass N times smaller the force drops by N but the deflection of this mass would be the same except for the effects of the suspending mechanism ("thread"). Perhaps a very thing falling fluid stream would be deflected as the mass approached it. x x MMMMMM x MMMMMM x MMMMMM x MMMMMM x MMMMMM x MMMMMM x x x \/ A bit hard to do in a vacuum with a liquid :-) Maybe a fine stream of solid particles? Comments? Russell McMahon -- http://www.piclist.com hint: PICList Posts must start with ONE topic: [PIC]:,[SX]:,[AVR]: ->uP ONLY! [EE]:,[OT]: ->Other [BUY]:,[AD]: ->Ads