3 ms·
> The alternative take is that LIGO's detectors are unfathomably sensitive, detecting when its ~4km arms stretch by just 10^-19 meters. That's a 10,000th the wi
by Pyxl101 9y ago
> The alternative take is that LIGO's detectors are unfathomably sensitive, detecting when its ~4km arms stretch by just 10^-19 meters. That's a 10,000th the width of a proton, where the proton is just a 100,000th the width of an atom, and the atom is about a 1,000,000th the width of a hair.
Wow. Hearing the sensitivity described in those terms is absolutely mind-blowing.
- pedro_hab 9y agoI know right? There is a video on veritasium on how absurd this is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iphcyNWFD10 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iphcyNWFD10
- StavrosK 9y agoI don't know, I can never process numbers this big. "To understand how sensitive the LIGO is, imagine each arm stretched out as far as the sun. Even if we had the resources to build an object this big, we still would not be able to get people to understand this intuitively at all."