If GW is electromagnetic wave type as the LIGO used the Interferometer to detect its presence by a frequency shift. But in the case of light, the same interferometer was used by Michelson-Morley and got null result. The only difference between them: LIGO assumed the contraction and expansion of fabric in linearity and expected to obtain a wavelength variance while MM was based on same principle but such wavelength variance was tried to be created by path difference. This shows the tendency of LIGO doesn't belong to true mechanism. So, if the expected result was true in experiment got by LIGO, it will question on fundamental nature of GW, how to mention the existence nature of GW?
GW is not an electromagnetic wave. No-one has claimed that it is. It is predicted by GR to be the distortion of space, which should produce a path difference between the two arms in the in the MM interferometer, if they are not pointing in a direction where the distortion has the same effect in both arms - as it was at one of the sites for one of the recent detections.
Hello Malcom,
you are right. I have corrected my mistake but I was not intended to make a difference there, I was simply stuck to the point of measurement. But the concept of electromagnetic nature for light was first emerged by the matching of its speed to the speed of electromagnetic wave, i.e. the speed allocated to light to be of electromagnetic wave in Maxwell's equation after Maxwell derived it. So, what I was pointing is, if GW wave could not exceed to the speed of light but approach up to this limit (a big problem for Einstein himself) and the property is expected to be exhibited as like of light (what LIGO had done but as they are invisible, light is used to preserve its existence, if any), discarding what ever their origin is concerned then GW is not much different than electromagnetic.
This shows in some aspects that whether the mechanism is intended to measure the GW or the true presence of spacetime itself. In my view, such measurement (if true) measured the presence of spactime actually as spacetime is omni-present whether there is such source or not.
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Physical Sciences
- Electromagnetics