How uncertain are LIGO’s first gravitational wave detections?
Did they perform their analysis sub-optimally? Maybe. But gravitational waves were seen no matter what.
“We hope that interested people will repeat our calculations and will make up their own minds regarding the significance of the results. It is obvious that “belief” is never an alternative to “understanding” in physics.”
-J. Creswell et al.
On September 14, 2015, two black holes of 36 and 29 solar masses merged together from over a billion light years away. In the inspiral and merger process, about 5% of their mass was converted into pure energy. It wasn’t energy the way we’re used to it, though, where photons carry it away in the form of electromagnetic energy. Rather, it was gravitational radiation, where waves ripple through the fabric of space itself at the speed of light. The ripples were so powerful, they stretched and compressed the entire Earth by the width of a few atoms, allowing the LIGO apparatus to directly detect gravitational waves for the first time. This confirmed Einstein’s General Relativity in an entirely new way, but a new study has cast doubton whether the detection is as robust as the LIGO team claims it is. Despite a detailed response from a member of the LIGO collaboration, doubts remain, and the issue deserves an…
