World Science Scholars

3.5 Building LIGO

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    • Scientific collaboration and cooperation on the scale of LIGO, comprised of hundreds of scientists across the globe, is a relatively new form of scientific experimentation. Do you think this style of experiment is limited to physics experiments, which often require huge sums of money and diverse technical and theoretical expertise? What other fields of scientific study do you think lend themselves well to large-scale, highly-coordinated research?

    • The LHC comes to mind, which represents the currently achievable top of the scale in particle physics (and data evaluation). Then, in astronomy, the James Webb Telescope is bound to expand our view and knowledge of the cosmos, also a collaboration. Clearly, the further the technology develops, the more expensive these scientific probes become, which makes a collaboration necessary; we couldn’t do without.

    • One good example is medicine. In many fields there are already exponentially grown databases over several hundreds of years. This data gives opportunity to build more sophisticated instruments and tools which are of course more expensive. Thus collaboration is needed in every level of expertise.

    • Do planetary motions of our solar system relative to Earth cause gravitational waves? Does that have anything to do with Astrology which essentially studies the influences of our planets , the Sun and the Mon on Human behaviors on Earth?

    • I strongly believe that energy healing is the next big wave. Energy healing has been practiced for centuries and when science and such aforementioned belief systems begin to merge in a more seriously accepted partnership, then we will see seemingly miraculous discoveries.

    • Miracles are to religion as experiments like LIGO are to Scientists. They cannot be repeated that easily. Similarly we have to wait for another pair of black holes to collide to see another gravitational wave signature on LIGO. As sure as scientists are about the collision so are religious buffs sure about miracles.

    • I think everything will have a profit in everything, after all, it is connected

    • maybe environmental research

    • Physics and physicists have claimed the spotlight with glorious and spectacular insights, and the funding has followed the music.
      However, if ever there were areas that urgently needed the global funding and global co-operation for really essential research projects they would surely include: medicine, pharmaceuticals, oceanography, climate research, neuroscience, geology etc.
      And, given the current pandemic, what about a global initiative to eradicate infectious diseases?

      • The areas of research you listed do get funding regularly. But physics projects normally lead to massive increases in economic capability through numerous subsequent findings during the projects, other research areas just do not grant these findings at the same rate.

        Physics, after all, is the philosophy of all things, so perhaps unlocking this field first is an optimal strategy because of the implications within other fields an unlock in this would have. It’s a multiplicative strength factor that compounds other areas of science, much in the same way Einstein couldn’t prove his theories without computers, we may not be able to prove other theories without pursuing the physics projects first.

    • I do not believe that these experiments are only limited to physics, as large-scale research projects such as ITER, which is a fusion power generator are currently in the works. There are also numerous other types of studies, such as quantum computers, wait for a second, these are all physics. haha… Perhaps our search for answers starts with the philosophy of math, and physics, and when we are trying to prove our theories with tests, we are required to implement them, at times large-scale projects are required.

      Large-scale, highly-coordinated efforts are the optimal strategy for almost every type of research project. But funding is limited. The reason we want to use large-scale projects and highly-coordinated research is that we have more data to work with, and with more eyes on the data, with more peoples minds working on the project we get the power of diversity in these projects. And diversity breeds diverse thoughts and theories.

      As we advance into a world that requires less labour because of automation and Universal basic income becomes more commonplace, we will have more freedom to conduct these experiments with more scientists capable of understanding the world and the work that comes from these super-massive projects.

      Aiming this research toward DARPA by writing a grant geared towards the detection of nuclear submarines would be one way to get mission-critical funding.
      This makes me wonder if these detectors could be used to ascertain the precise location of objects on earth. Even a tiny blip 1/10,000 the size of an atom in gravity could be detected. It gives me pause for thought about the types of real estate that space could bring to these fields. As then we could point detection capable arrays at the planet to precisely locate differentials in the fields experienced nominally.

    • Hello Ladies and Gentlemen,

      The collaborative efforts possible with the internet also allow better mining on regions that locals have not found yet.

      When prizes are offered for work, people get working- even on India`s liquid mercury mirrors, impossible for LIGO designs.

    • collaboration has always lead to advances, four eyes are better than two, and two-thousand are far superior.

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