GEO 600 to detect gravitational waves...

[Royston]

Full BBC article here....let's just hope it works !

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4415722.stm#graphic

 

A few key excerpts...

 

Prof Karsten Danzmann, Hanover University

"It will be a big event for two reasons: it will be yet another confirmation that Einstein's Theory of General Relativity is correct, but it will also open up a new kind of astronomy that will allow us to look inside the most violent events in the Universe."

 

A new kind of astronomy requires a new type of "telescope", and that's just what Hough and UK-German colleagues have been developing on farmland a short drive from Hanover. It is called GEO 600.

 

This is precision engineering at the extreme. To have any hope of detecting gravitational waves, it has to be.

 

It's equivalent to measuring a change of one hydrogen atom diameter in the distance from the Earth to the Sun.

[CanadaAotS]

So what will they say if it doesn't work? If they're never able to detect gravity waves?

 

Would it screw relativity over? lol

 

Just wonderin' since I've always found gravity waves to sound a little... hokey lol

[Severian]

If you are interested in more info, take a look at http://www.physics.gla.ac.uk/igr/

 

I work in the same building (but on a different topic) so I know Jim Hough and his team pretty well. (How does Jim manage to get so much publicity....?)

[T-Nemesis]

Wow, that's pretty amazing!

 

I hope it's a success.

[softdragonz]

So what will they say if it doesn't work? If they're never able to detect gravity waves?.

 

Well i guess it will be the same fate as the MM Experiment....We may be forced to get some crucial results on gravitational waves (...like the one on luminiferous ether century ago)