LOL LIGO! If the signal is “buried in detector noise,” how can LIGO be sure that the signal represents the inspiral of a black hole merger? LOL LIGO!
The event was much weaker than the first detection on September 14 and was buried in the detector noise. A so-called “matched-filter” search was essential for the detection. In such searches, the data are compared to or filtered with many predicted signals in order to find the best match. The predicted signals are based on highly accurate gravitational-wave models developed by scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics (Albert Einstein Institute). It was thanks to these models that the LIGO science team was able to show that the signal was caused by the merger of two black holes.
Why not wait for signals which are strong enough so that one doesn’t have to superimpose a pre-fabricated signal onto the data so as to see th “signal.” In fact, this method seems to be somewhat contradictory. In science we collect the data and then see what it represnts. If we map pre-conceived notions onto noisey data, then there is a great danger of fooling ourselves. LOL LIGO!
Feynman reminds us:
We’ve learned from experience that the truth will come out. Other experimenters will repeat your experiment (well, not until they build their own LIGO LOL!) and find out whether you were wrong or right. Nature’s phenomena will agree or they’ll disagree with your theory. And, although you may gain some temporary fame and excitement, you will not gain a good reputation as a scientist if you haven’t tried to be very careful in this kind of work. And it’s this type of integrity, this kind of care not to fool yourself, that is missing to a large extent in much of the research in cargo cult science.
See this interesting comment here:
This has GIGO written all over it.
Please understand what they are actually doing. They have templates they have created that are what they imagine two black holes would ‘sound’ like. they then use all kinds of data manipulation/masturbation to process their absurdly tenuous signal (questionable unto itself) until they find a ‘match’ to their made up template. This is not outright detection of anything, this is heavily processed and manipulated signal being compared against a made up signal (template) they think a black hole would produce, being that said black hole has not even been observed producing said signal by any known means, claiming said processed signal is indication or confirmation of a black hole is at best wishful thinking. We know next to nothing about if black holes even exist as speculated about mathematically. Any nonsense about a simple process of elimination making determinations of what a distant stellar object actually is makes no sense when it has been recently determined that stars themselves can have many magnitudes more mass than even wildly imagined possible without collapsing, and yet still be stars.
Since most of current black hole speculation revolves around entirely un-measurable non-physical dimensions which are pure geometrical abstraction (at best) in order to exist even mathematically, and requires manipulations of quantities at both zero and infinity (which are not actually defined), I’m not convinced in any way by ‘evidence’ that is stacked upon such speculation and is itself entirely dependent upon artificial signals being matched against artificial templates based entirely of WAGs. LIGO is more about fundraising for HEP than actual scientific discovery.
Does this ring true? Please comment below and let us know!
More healthy skepticism:
Is it true?
Media coverage of LIGO is remarkably similar to that generated by a previous gravitational-wave announcement. In March 2014, a team overseeing the Background Imaging of Cosmic Extragalactic Polarization observatory, or BICEP2, claimed to have detected gravitational waves produced by inflation, an extremely rapid–and hypothetical—cosmic growth spurt.
The lead BICEP2 researcher, John Kovac, assured The New York Timesthat “the chance that the results were a fluke was only one in 10 million.” I expressed doubts, saying I wanted “an explanation of why only inflation, and not other more conventional physical phenomena, can account for the gravity-wave findings.” Early in 2015, the BICEP2 researchers withdrew their claim, acknowledging that their observations had been distorted by dust in the Milky Way.
More discussion here:
Let us know what you think? Would it be wise for LIGO to wait for stronger signals?