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Re: [Phys-L] gravitational waves (Ludwik Kowalski)

A few clarifications….

1) Below is the link to FAQ about gravitational waves.

http://www.ligo.org/science/faq.php#what-are-gw
This is one of several FAQs. This FAQ is compiled by LIGO Scientific Collaboration (LSC) Education and Public Outreach (EPO) members on an ad-hoc basis. This collaboration involves over 1000 people, but only a handful of them actively work on EPO.
Another FAQ is: https://www.ligo.caltech.edu/LA/page/faq
And a primer of sorts is at: https://www.ligo.caltech.edu/LA/page/learn-more as well as: http://www.tapir.caltech.edu/~teviet/Waves/gwave.html and http://ligo.org/students_teachers_public/read.php .


2) The answers were given by "LIGO Science Education Center," whose director is William Katzman.

I had almost nothing to do with the FAQ at ligo.org, as most of it predated me. I work at the Livingston Observatory (which is only one small portion of the LSC) , managing their Education and Public Outreach. I am also in the handful of LSC-EPO folks. At Livingston we keep the explanation of gravitational waves generally non-quantitative since it doesn’t seem to add to understanding. Gravitational waves are transverse, although I find this to be a less critical distinction than many of my colleagues. We do use the trampoline model of the universe to explain gravitational waves. It is flawed - as the mathematics don’t work well, but it does provide several apt analogies - including the analogy that it actually can stretch - like space. Saying that gravitational waves are ripples or waves on that trampoline like model seems to get across the basic idea to a wide range of people, but it doesn’t get into the hairy details of it being a quadrupole wave. I think it’s smart to introduce gravitational waves in a general manner, because they’re in the news and therefore can serve to inspire a subset of people to study science more, ut for introductory students I wouldn’t approach it quantitatively since that requires an understanding of GR.


3) He posted a Phys-L message (on 4/13/2013). Is he a PHYS-L su bscriber? I assume so.

Yes, I (William Katzman) am a subscriber in digest format.

Cheers,

-William