The search for gravity waves: End in sight?

The aether I'm interested in isn't detectible, and isn't measurable, it is simply hypothesized to have the characteristics to carry energy in the form of waves, so I agree with the first statement. The fact that it isn't required to describe the physics of the universe, I take to mean that GR and the EFEs adequately quantify what we call gravity to your satisfaction and to the satisfaction of those in the scientific community who share your thinking. For you to declare it a dead end on that basis is understandable. It isn't a dead end to me because the mechanics of gravity are of interest to me, not just the mathematical quantification that tells us what relative motion to expect.

 

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If we assume gravity is a force like the other three forces; EM, strong and weak nuclear forces, then a lowering of gravity potential should give off energy. When the EM force or the nuclear forces lower potential, photons are given off. If gravity is also a force, like the rest of the other three forces, it too should give off energy. The expectation is graviton/gravity waves. If these do not exist, then gravity is not a force exactly like the others, since it needs to have the energy output feature, that is common to the other three forces. If not, gravity would be unique as a force.

Bear with me for a minute. If you look at chemical reactions, the reactants need to climb an energy hill before they can move forward to completion. The energy hill, is useful because it helps to maintain stable/quantum states. To move between two states below (A to B), there needs to be a source of energy to help climb the activation energy hill. Below the man supplies the energy to push the rock up the hill. Once at the top, the rock can freely roll down the other side. This is true of the EM, weak and strong nuclear forces. One has to light the nuclear fuse; activation energy.

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That being said, gravity provides activation energy via exerting pressure and doing work. This is one source of gravity waves. It is not as exotic as everyone wants in their wildest fantasies, but it satisfies the needs of gravity generated energy as activation energy. Gravity induces phases changes and the work and heat needed to light the nuclear fusion fuse.

 

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I don't assume that gravity is like the other forces. Only certain particles display a response to electric and magnetic fields, while any particle with mass is affected by gravity. It seems to be different.

I'm with you there all the way though. If we take relative motion as the indicator, any relative motion between objects would suggest that a quantifiable amount of energy was associated with that motion. That would be an hypothesis, and not intended to be a description of current theory, and the hypothesis would involve gravitational wave energy mechanics that we don't yet understand.

I think we can hypothesize that particles with matter have the energy output characteristic. How it works would be part of the physical mechanics of gravity, it there are in fact physical mechanics. The search for gravitational waves as part of the current consensus theory is likely to detect the largest of the gravitational waves.

 

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http://www.symmetrymagazine.org/article/october-2012/explain-it-in-60-seconds-gravitational-waves

The latest free issue of symmetry magazine arrived yesterday. It is always fun to read through it and it is one of the ways a layman can keep abreast of what is going on in particle physics. It reminded me of a past article about gravitational waves from a couple of years back.
October 23, 2012

Gravitational waves

If you could detect a bowling ball’s gravitational waves, you would know when someone threw the ball—even if you were standing outside the bowling alley.
Daniel Holz, University of Chicago

Gravitational waves were first predicted by Albert Einstein almost a century ago, but scientists have yet to observe them directly.

According to Einstein, anything with mass exerts a gravitational pull on everything around it. When an object moves, this gravitational pull changes. If you could detect the gravitational tug from a bowling ball, you would know when someone threw the ball, even if you were standing outside the bowling alley. The pull would grow stronger or weaker as the ball traveled closer to or farther from you. You wouldn’t know about the ball's motion instantaneously, though, since nothing—not even information—can travel faster than the speed of light. News of the ball’s acceleration would be carried through ripples in spacetime called gravitational waves.

However, most gravitational waves are extraordinarily weak. In order to emit strong gravitational waves, an object would need to be massive and to accelerate very quickly. You would be more likely to feel gravitational waves outside the bowling alley if the bowling ball were as dense as a black hole, and if someone bowled it at close to the speed of light.

Scientists are building facilities such as the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory, or LIGO, to directly measure gravitational waves. Within a decade we expect to detect waves from black holes as massive as our sun spiraling into one another at distances of hundreds of millions of lightyears from Earth. The detection of these gravitational waves will open a revolutionary new window on our universe. (end)

I like this quote from the article, "anything with mass exerts a gravitational pull on everything around it. When an object moves, this gravitational pull changes." That is what I was trying to convey in a couple of posts earlier in this thread. Motion itself causes gravity waves. They are referred to as ripples in spacetime in the article, but that description is theory specific.

My point is that gravitational waves are common features of all cosmologies, and they are the mechanism of how objects can cause and feel action at a distance. The difference between the various cosmological models is how those waves are transmitted across space. If space can carry gravitational wave energy, then the commonality is that there is a medium that carries wave energy.

In General Relativity is spacetime considered a physical medium? Not yet. In other theories it is the medium of space or the medium that fills all space. Since there is no physical description of how a wave traverses spacetime except that the ripple is caused by the presence and motion of the object emitting the gravitational wave, we are left to wonder how it travels, if there is no medium. It is self propagating in a gravitational field?

With a cosmology that features a medium of space, the how might be as simple as spherical wave action emitted and felt by objects. The "emitted" and "felt" would then be the theory specific mechanics of a particular cosmology. What is the mechanism of self propagation of the gravitational waves through spacetime?