Muttley

February 11th, 2016 at 12:37 PM ^

with the 2016 Michigan Defense.

 

...confirmation of the nature of black holes, the bottomless gravitational pits from which not even light can escape, which were the most foreboding (and unwelcome) part of his theory.

(most noticeably unwelcome these days to the SEC)

ijohnb

February 11th, 2016 at 11:43 AM ^

has their been a better description of boxed lasagna than the one Jesse Pinkman delivered at the White dinner table.  "Just becomes one big scab."

ijohnb

February 11th, 2016 at 12:59 PM ^

OK, let's go -

1. Game of Thrones, 2. Breaking Bad, 3. Deadwood, 4. The Sopranos, 5. Rectify(this could go as high as 3 depending on where it goes and for how long).

Yes, The Wire is notably absent, as is Mad Men.  Was just never that impressed.

Bodogblog

February 11th, 2016 at 1:29 PM ^

Did you get to it late?  The last season was shit, but there were some outstanding stretches.  Sopranos should always get the nod both because of longevity, but there's too many white people who need to cite The Wire as a favorite to prove they're not racist. 

Doctor What

February 11th, 2016 at 3:52 PM ^

Tried to watch Mad Men. Couldn't make it past a couple episodes. Never saw GOT and started watching The Sopranos, ironcially, for the first time last Saturday. I'm on season 2 episode 10...so, yea it's good.

BlowGoo

February 11th, 2016 at 11:49 AM ^

It has massive implications, including philosophical.

It means that we can potentially "see" the initiation of the Big Bang itself, since RF energy, the current only means we have of observing the universe, only allows us to see up to about 400k years after the Big Bang. Why? The baby universe was too dense prior to that to allow the propagation of RF energy necessary to allow us to observe today.

But gravitational waves should have been able to travel unabated even through the dense initial stages of the universe.  They're just so darned tiny and hard to detect! But we now KNOW they're out there.

Who knows where this might lead? A means of interstellar communication? Another way of detecting life? A more efficient way of explaining/detecting dark energy/matter?  The universal boundary is the limit.

Once in a generation type discovery.

Very exciting.

MadMatt

February 11th, 2016 at 12:31 PM ^

I've read the theory that since changes in measurable mass (i.e. gravity) are instantly detectable, that one can communicate faster than light if one can manipulate gravitational fields.

I also read in one of the articles covering the announcement a statement that gravity waves travel at the speed of light.  Is that correct; did the author misunderstand?

Please comment.

Balrog_of_Morgoth

February 11th, 2016 at 12:39 PM ^

Gravitational waves travel at the speed of light, so we could not use this for superluminal communication.

Changes in mass/gravity are not instantly detectable. They were in Newton's theory, but this was not consistent with special relativity and this contradiction was the impetus behind Einstein seeking out a general theory of relativity.

MaizeAndBlueWahoo

February 11th, 2016 at 12:57 PM ^

OK, I am clueless on ultra high level physics, but help me figure something here.  If gravity waves travel at the speed of light, and the Big Bang (I prefer HSK, by the way) gave off gravity waves, wouldn't those waves be "further out" from the Big Bang point than we are, and therefore we will never detect the Big Bang's gravity waves?  The only way we could ever detect Big Bang gravity waves would be if some matter from the Big Bang, at some point, traveled faster than light, no?