4 ms·

It can at least trigger hn front page submission, this we know. You mean something like tectonic event trigger or something physics specific?

xattt 3y ago
I was thinking more along the lines of a chemical or nuclear reaction (or some yet-to-be-conceptualized space-time reaction) at near an initiation point, but not quite there. I assume the gravity wave could push the reaction to initiate by warping a subatomic element (like an electron orbital) into an otherwise impossible configuration on a scale of picometers for a split second.
- zeven7 3y ago
  These gravity waves aren't strong enough to pull us off Earth. Everything on Earth is already subjected to gravity, and it doesn't cause nuclear reactions. Gravity waves won't cause impossible configurations to become possible.
  - taeric 3y ago
    Could it impact orbits? Or tides?
    - stouset 3y ago
      I think you are overestimating the amount of power in these gravitational waves by several dozen orders of magnitude. To even detect these, we need to observe multiple pulsars over long periods of time in order to find minute effects only visible at galactic scales due to the nanohertz frequency of these waves. In other words, spacetime is being stretched and compressed at subatomic scales on a sinusoidal wave with a period of a month or so. It’s a bit like asking if cosmic rays from the Pinwheel Galaxy are affecting cancer rates.
      - xattt 3y ago
        > It’s a bit like asking if cosmic rays from the Pinwheel Galaxy are affecting cancer rates. Thank you for that context!
      - taeric 3y ago
        Makes sense. I am a bit of a drive by tourist on this; such that the only reason I asked this was the analogy of a kid pumping their feet stuck on me and messed up my assumed scale on effects.
    - charlieflowers 3y ago
      Or the flip of a coin? I don’t know the answer but it’s an interesting question
  - sliken 3y ago
    Well it depends. How big a wave are we talking about? The ones so far have been very distant. But when to 100 solar mass black holes merge and form a 90 solar mass black hole they release 10 solar mass of energy (E=mc^2 strikes again). Being close to such a merge would be lethal. However there's nothing that we know of that could happen close by, so the risk is near zero. Apparently the black hole at the center of the milky way is going to merge with another super massive blackhole in Andromeda in 4.5 billion years or so.
- jessriedel 3y ago
  The nuclear and electromagnetic forces in the vicinity are stupendously stronger than gravity at small scales. One could imagine that some electromagnetic or nuclear process might be heavily suppressed by some symmetry such that it could only be unlocked by gravitational forces (which would break that symmetry), but nothing like that comes to my mind. Basically, anything that gravity could do could be done by electromagnetic and nuclear forces vastly faster.

xattt 3y ago

I was thinking more along the lines of a chemical or nuclear reaction (or some yet-to-be-conceptualized space-time reaction) at near an initiation point, but not quite there. I assume the gravity wave could push the reaction to initiate by warping a subatomic element (like an electron orbital) into an otherwise impossible configuration on a scale of picometers for a split second.

zeven7 3y ago
These gravity waves aren't strong enough to pull us off Earth. Everything on Earth is already subjected to gravity, and it doesn't cause nuclear reactions. Gravity waves won't cause impossible configurations to become possible.
- taeric 3y ago
  Could it impact orbits? Or tides?
  - stouset 3y ago
    I think you are overestimating the amount of power in these gravitational waves by several dozen orders of magnitude. To even detect these, we need to observe multiple pulsars over long periods of time in order to find minute effects only visible at galactic scales due to the nanohertz frequency of these waves. In other words, spacetime is being stretched and compressed at subatomic scales on a sinusoidal wave with a period of a month or so. It’s a bit like asking if cosmic rays from the Pinwheel Galaxy are affecting cancer rates.
    - xattt 3y ago
      > It’s a bit like asking if cosmic rays from the Pinwheel Galaxy are affecting cancer rates. Thank you for that context!
    - taeric 3y ago
      Makes sense. I am a bit of a drive by tourist on this; such that the only reason I asked this was the analogy of a kid pumping their feet stuck on me and messed up my assumed scale on effects.
  - charlieflowers 3y ago
    Or the flip of a coin? I don’t know the answer but it’s an interesting question
- sliken 3y ago
  Well it depends. How big a wave are we talking about? The ones so far have been very distant. But when to 100 solar mass black holes merge and form a 90 solar mass black hole they release 10 solar mass of energy (E=mc^2 strikes again). Being close to such a merge would be lethal. However there's nothing that we know of that could happen close by, so the risk is near zero. Apparently the black hole at the center of the milky way is going to merge with another super massive blackhole in Andromeda in 4.5 billion years or so.
jessriedel 3y ago
The nuclear and electromagnetic forces in the vicinity are stupendously stronger than gravity at small scales. One could imagine that some electromagnetic or nuclear process might be heavily suppressed by some symmetry such that it could only be unlocked by gravitational forces (which would break that symmetry), but nothing like that comes to my mind. Basically, anything that gravity could do could be done by electromagnetic and nuclear forces vastly faster.