proof of gravitons?

[CPL.Luke]

yes

[Obnoxious]

How?! Gravitons have been found?! How do you detect something so damn small and weak to the point of planck length?!

[BlackHole]

Gravitons are an important prediction of quantum gravity but there is no evidence for their existence.

 

I think we'll have to send highly sensitive probes equipped with a telescope. It's not an easy task but it can be done until 2020.

 

We would need a particle accelerator bigger than the size of the sun to get to energies high enough for all of the forces to be unified. This cannot be accomplished in my lifetime but it will become possible 200-300 years from now.

[Daecon]

I thought the new CERNmobile wasn't going to be plugged into the mains supply until 2006?

[Nevermore]

sorry, turns out I was wrong.

[Severian]

To actually observe gravity waves is extremely difficult, since gravity is so weak. You have to wait for a massive gravitational event (like a supernova) and try and detect the tiny gravitational influence of this on something on Earth. Generally speaking Gravitational Wave Detectors have very long arms with large masses on either end - a gravitational wave will move the masses differently (since it is a 'wave' and will have different magnitudes in different places) which, if you are careful enough, you can detect. There should be two arms (at least) at right angles to each other to cover both directions on Earth.

 

There are pretty much two schools of thought of how to build these things. The US machines are the biggest (of course) but tend not to be very sophisticated, whereas the European machines are smaller but more high tech (in the way which they remove noise). However, there is now a new initiative to apply European technology (form GEO 600) to an American machine (LIGO), so hopefully we might see something in the next decade or so....

 

PS: Gravitons are only theoretically postulated - they have never been observed, and are not likely to be in my lifetime.