by alter-ego » Tue Sep 02, 2014 6:47 am
geckzilla wrote:Well, the seemingly nutty idea and the unknown look like this. This is it, people. Exploration of the quantum world. It's not a telescope peering into the cosmos or a party of shirtless men wielding machetes in a forest, but nonetheless I felt the hairs on my body raise a little bit when I read
that paper.
Yes, this new and exciting in its nature, and I felt (still feel) the same way about gravitational wave detection technology. However, the best ideas have trouble in practice. I have my reservations about the expected performance of the 40-meter interferometer. Although it's got the added sensitivity of a "ring-down" style resonator applied to the interferometer, it will be also harder to extract such small amplitudes from the multi-pass, amplified phase variations from environment changes. I'm a bit disappointed that there isn't more detail regarding laser bandwidth, the evolution plan for the interferometer hardware from the APOD prototype design, and just how nested do the arms need to be. For example, if there are two beam splitters, any separation will experience different environments and different signals. Here, the prototype items shown are about as unstable as you can get, I'm familiar with them, but I also know you must start somewhere - form normally follows function.
Hogan's approach for requiring the Plank Length to be invariant in all reference frames is the goose-bumpy part for me. Them's strong words and showing that will be a tough road to hoe. Regarding the technology, my feeling is this is similar to Gravity Probe B experiment that recently measured Gravitomagnetism (frame dragging). A beautifully done experiment that was first proposed in 1959. It wasn't until 2004 that the technology existed. Hogan could be in for a long slog too, maybe not 45 years, but I believe longer than 2 - and that assumes the theory / experiment is not debunked.
As usual, I hope Hogan is successful and that my prediction is wrong. I just want to be alive for the next breakthrough if it should occur.
[quote="geckzilla"]Well, the seemingly nutty idea and the unknown look like this. This is it, people. Exploration of the quantum world. It's not a telescope peering into the cosmos or a party of shirtless men wielding machetes in a forest, but nonetheless I felt the hairs on my body raise a little bit when I read [url=http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2013arXiv1307.2283H]that paper[/url].[/quote]
Yes, this new and exciting in its nature, and I felt (still feel) the same way about gravitational wave detection technology. However, the best ideas have trouble in practice. I have my reservations about the expected performance of the 40-meter interferometer. Although it's got the added sensitivity of a "ring-down" style resonator applied to the interferometer, it will be also harder to extract such small amplitudes from the multi-pass, amplified phase variations from environment changes. I'm a bit disappointed that there isn't more detail regarding laser bandwidth, the evolution plan for the interferometer hardware from the APOD prototype design, and just how nested do the arms need to be. For example, if there are two beam splitters, any separation will experience different environments and different signals. Here, the prototype items shown are about as unstable as you can get, I'm familiar with them, but I also know you must start somewhere - form normally follows function.
Hogan's approach for requiring the Plank Length to be invariant in all reference frames is the goose-bumpy part for me. Them's strong words and showing that will be a tough road to hoe. Regarding the technology, my feeling is this is similar to Gravity Probe B experiment that recently measured Gravitomagnetism (frame dragging). A beautifully done experiment that was first proposed in 1959. It wasn't until 2004 that the technology existed. Hogan could be in for a long slog too, maybe not 45 years, but I believe longer than 2 - and that assumes the theory / experiment is not debunked.
As usual, I hope Hogan is successful and that my prediction is wrong. I just want to be alive for the next breakthrough if it should occur.