Background Gravitational Waves

[Graeme]

This one might be a bit too far up the esoteric geeky scale for many but it is about the possibility of new physics and a new understanding of the universe on the scale of the discovery of the Cosmic Microwave Background. Not only that but it also has Dr Becky! If you are into this stuff she does an excellent job of explaining the complicated in layman's terms and introducing elements of the really complicated.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUmJxZ7PQzw&t=1482s


Graeme

[ChrisGreaves]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUmJxZ7PQzw&t=1482s

Thanks for the link, Graeme. With a list of yard tasks a yard long, and my new Moka Pot to try out, it is a no-brainer!

Pulsars: "you can set your watch by them" presumably the huge mass provides huge momentum, which i think of as "resistance to change", and is this what gives us the "resistance to change the period", which is what gives pulsars their great accuracy?

Compared to the vibration of atoms (Caesium?) which is the more accurate, an atom or a pulsar?

Long Wavelengths: on a 20-year timescale is worse than trying to root a pineapple top in soil here in Bonavista and waiting for my first sales : "Get your fresh pineapple here!" And people think 80-column punched card technology was slow ...

New Physics: Mr. Puzey (high school) was excellent. My Uni lecturers - I think it significant that I have forgotten their names. Now we have physics that is newer than what I didn't master sixty years ago? Time for me to get back to barrowing grass clippings ...

It has been a year since last i watched Dr Becky. Thanks again for reintroducing us.

Cheers, Chris

[Graeme]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUmJxZ7PQzw&t=1482s

Thanks for the link, Graeme. With a list of yard tasks a yard long, and my new Moka Pot to try out, it is a no-brainer!

Pulsars: "you can set your watch by them" presumably the huge mass provides huge momentum, which i think of as "resistance to change", and is this what gives us the "resistance to change the period", which is what gives pulsars their great accuracy?

That and conservation of angular momentum. It's something to do with a spinning object ten times the size of the Sun reducing in radius to the size of a city.

Compared to the vibration of atoms (Caesium?) which is the more accurate, an atom or a pulsar?

Dunno!

Long Wavelengths: on a 20-year timescale is worse than trying to root a pineapple top in soil here in Bonavista and waiting for my first sales : "Get your fresh pineapple here!" And people think 80-column punched card technology was slow ...

New Physics: Mr. Puzey (high school) was excellent. My Uni lecturers - I think it significant that I have forgotten their names. Now we have physics that is newer than what I didn't master sixty years ago? Time for me to get back to barrowing grass clippings ...

It has been a year since last i watched Dr Becky. Thanks again for reintroducing us.

Cheers, Chris

[Leif]

...which is the more accurate, an atom or a pulsar?

Keeping Better Time With Atomic Clocks: A Live-Blog Event With Nobel Laureate David Wineland

Pulsars can be accurate to one part in 10^14 or 10^15, but atomic clocks have long since passed that, and are now at the one part in ~10^17 level, far surpassing what pulsars can do.

But that was eight years ago now...

[stuck]

There's a local gravitational anomaly that my wife can set her watch by. It passes through our bedroom every morning at 08:00 and the increased gravitational field brings causes pins me to the mattress until the anomaly fades at 08:45 and I'm eventually able to get up at 09:00.

Ken

[Leif]

You can't argue with gravity, it's the law.

[ChrisGreaves]

Keeping Better Time With Atomic Clocks: A Live-Blog Event With Nobel Laureate David Wineland
{{ 4m 42s }} this laboratory is located on the California coast... and that's the frequency of waves crashing on the shore. That's a sensitive experiment!

is he saying that the mass of water of a breaking wave can cause a gravitational impact that affects the atomic clock?


Heisenberg is probably rotating in his grave.

I get from this that by making a long experiment (as Dr Becky suggested) means that we can keep track of deviations in a clock that is 1,000 times more accurate (Aluminium) by using a less accurate clock (Mercury) for ten times that 1,000 times as long.
Which would be like using a pendulum clock to keep track of the earth's rotational speed.

The link is not visible on laptops in Bonavista, but I found this link on YouTube which I think is the same lecture.

Great stuff, and thank you
Cheris