Open Innovation Project to Detect Gravitational Waves
Gravitational waves are ripples in the curvature of space time that were predicted by Einstein in his General Theory of Relativity. However, they are so tiny that detecting them has proved to be notoriously difficult.
The first detection of this elusive phenomenon was made around 100 years after Einstein’s work by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO). Now the scientists behind the research are turning to the crowd with an open innovation initiative to help them become better and faster at finding the tell-tale signs of gravitational waves.
The problem scientists face is that there are often glitches (disturbances from instruments or environmental sources that occur about once every second) in LIGO data that can either be confused for gravitational waves or mask them out completely.
These irritating blips can severely interfere with the science. While computing power can be used to sift through the data to recognize the differences between glitches and gravitational waves, nothing beats the human brain, says the scientists.
“Classifying glitches using computers has proven to be an exceedingly difficult task,” reads a statement from the LIGO team. “… human intuition has proven time and time again to be a useful tool in pattern recognition problems such as this.”
Open Innovation Space Research
Therefore, researchers have set up Gravity Spy, a citizen science website where volunteers are asked to identify the different kinds of glitches that appear in the data.
For more information, and to help scientists with their ground-breaking research in detecting more gravitational waves in space, click here.
Reader Comments
GR8 ideas here folks. We live in new times. The older ways have served their time and now we move ahead. Let us just assume that the modern-man brain is a box
of tools connected by wifi to an enormous library-laboratory. Everything we need to know down here on flatland is available to those who can get past the mind blocks that have been installed prior to this point. All change begins within. Change the way one thinks and all is possible. In a nutshell, the biggest block is our attitude to receiving information from another source. It doesn't have to be scientific if it is true. Get that point and we are halfway there. So here is a suggestion that may or may not bear fruit. Ask who might know some-
thing about gravity without realising that they do. Perhaps a crane driver or a helicopter mechanic does have a developed idea that could point in the right direction. Tesla, Einstein, Freud would all have ideas along similar lines.
I leave you with one last thought. According to all the previously known laws of aeronautics, the humble bumble bee could not fly. However, bumble bees had no knowledge of man-kinds laws and continued to break same with impunity.
Go for it bumble bees !
Thankyou folks for this site. It fulfils a real need.
Posted by Robert. on January 18, 2017
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