Users Online Now:
1,438
(
Who's On?
)
Visitors Today:
223,579
Pageviews Today:
299,555
Threads Today:
90
Posts Today:
1,342
02:32 AM
Directory
Adv. Search
Topics
Forum
Back to Forum
Back to Thread
REPLY TO THREAD
Subject
Scientists Squeeze Light Past Quantum Limit
User Name
Font color:
Default
Dark Red
Red
Orange
Brown
Yellow
Green
Olive
Cyan
Blue
Dark Blue
Indigo
Violet
Black
Font:
Default
Verdana
Tahoma
Ms Sans Serif
In accordance with industry accepted best practices we ask that users limit their copy / paste of copyrighted material to the relevant portions of the article you wish to discuss and no more than 50% of the source material, provide a link back to the original article and provide your original comments / criticism in your post with the article.
[quote:He who walks behind the roses:MV8xNjM3NTk4XzI3MTE4NDMzX0M2QzYxMkIx] [quote:Heretic™:MV8xNjM3NTk4XzI3MDQyOTQ4XzdBOEM3MjFD] [quote:Anonymous Coward 1184401:MV8xNjM3NTk4XzI3MDQyODY1XzM3QzkwNjE0] booo :bsflag: [/quote] :kphawking: [/quote] :roflmao: [/quote]
Original Message
The race to discover gravity waves may be getting closer to the finish line with scientists successfully squeezing light using quantum mechanics.
The detection of gravity waves is one of the Holy Grails of astronomy and astrophysics. It will allow researchers to study the inner workings of exploding stars and colliding black holes.
Einstein's general theory of relativity predicts these massive astronomical events generate tiny fluctuations, causing the fabric of space-time to expand and contract - like ripples on the surface of a pond.
These yet to be discovered waves require the most sensitive detectors ever built, but up until now they've not been sensitive enough.
Now an international team of scientists, which includes Professor David Blair, Director of the Australian International Gravity Wave Research Centre at the University of Western Australia, report on a new technique in the journal Nature Physics, which almost doubles the sensitivity of these detectors.
Blair says the GEO600 gravity wave observatory in Germany is the first practical application of this new technology, and is part of a global network called the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO).
The observatory will measure tiny variations in the distance travelled by two halves of a laser beam that's been split along perpendicular arms of a kilometre-sized instrument called an interferometer.
But any the change in the beams caused by gravity waves is so tiny, it's drowned out by a quantum effect called vacuum fluctuations.
[
link to www.abc.net.au
]
Pictures (click to insert)
General
Politics
Bananas
People
Potentially Offensive
Emotions
Big Round Smilies
Aliens and Space
Friendship & Love
Textual
Doom
Misc Small Smilies
Religion
Love
Random
View All Categories
|
Next Page >>