"We have detected gravitational waves. We did it."

Selfsim,

Here is another blatant lie.

Perhaps Mozina would like to explain the post Newtonian and numerical
relativity iteration parameters that are modified in the model that will give you any wave form you want.

What makes the quote so contradictory is this comment.

So the question here which is the correct lie.
Is he lying about embracing GR theory given he has stated GR is nothing more than inserting a random wave form to obtain any any result you want, or he is lying about the random wave form given he admits to embracing GR.

He is even totally confused on how to lie.

 

Hmm .. I don't know for certain, but I'm pretty sure Michael doesn't fully 'get' what he's 'embracing' when he uses the term: "GR theory" ...

I also notice he's watered down the astrophysical meaning of 'Black Hole' .. He seems to qualify it with the phrase 'a heavy object', thereby avoiding the defining properties of a singularity, an event horizon and the non-escape of light.

There's a list as long as my arm of things he's redefined to suit his own beliefs .. magnetic reconnection, Birkeland currents, whistler waves, cosmological redshift, etc.
In fact, it seems better for all when Michael doesn't 'embrace' something.

 

Double post

 

Thank you sincerely for providing us with some really wonderful links by the way. From your pdf:

So basically the software they had in place at the time of the event determined within four seconds that that the signal in question was a "glitch", and rejected it outright. It wasn't until some *person* later went in and *removed* a very specific data quality *veto* from the software that allowed them to then claim "discovery". In other words, humans didn't like the outcome of the rejection so they modified the software to remove a specific veto process. I wonder exactly what that highly specific software change looks like? It sounds remarkably like it rejected the signal as a "blip transient", and they removed a the "veto" they had in place because they later "decided" that "blip transients" cannot affect both detectors at the same time. Wanna place any wagers that this was the exact "veto" process that was removed?

Wow! They basically tacitly admit that they "modified" the software because they didn't like the first result and they simply removed specific veto software from the appropriate software algorithm. Wow!

Well, at least we now know where exactly in the rejection source code to look for "evidence" of whistler waves/blip transients as the real cause of the signal. All we need now is the source code of the original veto software that originally rejected the signal within four seconds, along with a copy of the software that removed that exact veto.

 

The only reason "honesty" has gone flying out the window in this conversation is due to the fact that you personally refuse to debate those 9 specific issues (and I'm about to add a 10th thanks to Selfsim), and you insist on debasing this conversation in every single post by attempting to kill the messenger in every single post. That's where honesty and integrity when flying out the window. Stop it! Stick to the topic!

One of the two of you used the argument that "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" earlier in this conversation. If that phrase applies to this topic, it applies to this specific issue. They routinely *do* observe blip transients in *both* detectors. They *assumed* they could not occur in both detectors at the same time because they *assumed* the are instrument related failures *despite* never isolating any specific channel or hardware failure.

After reading those couple of paragraphs from that last PDF file Selfsim provided, I'd bet (a little) money that the "void mechanism" change that they made to the software is directly related to this issue.

 

No, I simply noted that now he's deviating from debating the published paper itself and the *published* results from that paper, and now we're down to debating a few words here and there from completely unpublished sources. Actually however, I'm pleased with the way that Selfsim has engaged himself in this conversation to date. For the most part he's stuck to the *topic* of the debate, and he's provided some wonderful references. You on the other hand almost always steer the conversation away from the topic, and attack *people*.

That's due to the fact that I'm not claiming "discovery" and I see no evidence that they ever even considered whistler waves as the potential cause of this signal. The term doesn't appear anywhere in the published material, nor do the terms "magnetosphere" or "ionosphere". All I got in any published paper associated with this claim was the term "geomagnetic" influences, which they promptly handwaved away for 203,000 years based on a grand total of 16 days of cherry picked data.

Why? You never provided any visual evidence to support any of your claims. Why do I have to provide supporting evidence when you did not?

The only one being entirely dishonest in this conversation is you. I did not say that, and I have never accused anyone associated with BICEP2 or LIGO of being a "liar". You are dishonestly sticking words in my mouth. Proud of those dishonest debate tactics?

 

No, I'm simply noting that you're now deviating from *published and peer reviewed* material, and moving us into the realm of "unpublished reference". Your last reference however was very helpful and extremely informative actually. I was at first simply debating the merits of the published papers, but I'm not adverse to discussing other external references. In fact that last one was a real bombshell of a reference.

Actually, after reading that last reference you cited, I know *exactly* which "data" I want to look at first, namely the original h(t) software that rejected the signal in question in four seconds flat, and the updated software that apparently removed a void mechanism of some kind. It's not just "somewhere", it's *right there*! Whatever specific void mechanism that they removed from this software is the key to unraveling this mystery.

Actually, I see no evidence whatsoever that they attempted to specifically weed out whistler waves from consideration. They never mentioned the term. They never checked any of the appropriate satellite databases, and they didn't even mention the term "magnetosphere" in their published papers.

The *single most* damaging issue however is the fact that they knew within 4 seconds that the signal was originally rejected. They knew within 15 minutes that no gamma ray bursts had been detected either. Even after 6 months, there is *zero* visual confirmation of this claim.

You totally blew up the irony meter on that one! Unlike the LIGO teams claim of a new "discovery", I am not making any 'extraordinary" claims in any way. Whistler waves are *known* to occur as "chirps" with ascending (and sometimes descending) frequency shifts that look just like that signal in terms of frequency shift and duration.

The LIGO crew however is making a highly "extraordinary" claim with respect to this signal. They failed to even provide *any* visual corroboration for this claim, and they failed to provide a void mechanism for celestial claims. They not only didn't provide "extraordinary" evidence with respect to weeding out whistler waves, they provided almost *zero* evidence that they ever even considered it. They made an *extraordinary* claim, not me, and they provided zero supporting evidence to support their claim as to the "cause" of the signal.

They did it two years ago with BICEP2! Why shouldn't I be skeptical of their claims?

I really wish you'd refrain from trying to kill the messenger simply because I've pointed out some serious flaws in this paper. You've added a 10th scientific concern to my list too based on that last paper. They literally *modified* their software somewhere to *remove* a void mechanism that originally rejected this signal, and I don't have access to that software change to 'verify' that those changes were warranted or wise.

 

Ya, and I kinda get the feeling that the first time around, that the original rejection was probably related to that issue. I suspect their original software rejected it as "blip transient". Wanna bet a beer on that?

They evidently magically "reappeared" when a human being specifically went back into the software *after the first rejection*, and they specifically removed/modified the void code that resulted in the original rejection. LIGO's own reference states as much.

Actually, it's well documented now thanks to your latest reference. Nice!

 

Technically supernova events might generate some gravity waves, but not necessarily at a level we'd observe in LIGO, and such events have nothing to do with this specific paper.

Woah! In theory LIGO can even observe neutron star pairs in close orbit around each other, and neutron stars emit light. Black holes also tend to emit a *lot* of light from the plasma circling around the outside of the event horizon. Two of them *slamming into each other* should very much result in a huge release of observable photons. The intensity of the photons will depend on the *exact* conditions of the merger, but such high energy events are unlikely to be "invisible".

Ok.

Er no. He specifically said that we would only see an absolute brightness of -2 from an event that directly converts the mass of three suns into pure energy in a quarter of a second. He was simply wrong which is why he ran from my request to review his math.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/space/deep-space/a18853/black-hole-brightest-v404-cygni/
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v529/n7584/full/nature16452.html

Black holes *routinely* emit all types of high energy photons from the plasma around the event horizon. They can even presumably hold an electrical charge, and they rotate at speeds that approach the speed of light, that's why. If you slam two of them together, you're almost *certain* to get photons lighting up the sky from the plasma in turmoil around both event horizons, and then finally the plasma that is surrounding the single event horizon. There's no logical reason to believe that they would *not* emit photons. Your claim about them both potentially being 'naked' is an excellent example of the special pleading you're doing to try to avoid using the visual data as a void mechanism as they did with everything *except for* celestial claims!

 

Sjastro: Fyi:
From: 'Characterization of transient noise in Advanced LIGO relevant to gravitational wave signal GW150914'
Page 14 Section 3.1 Uncorrelated Noise:

There never was any veto concerning blip transients that could then be removed by humans thus 'allowing a claim of discovery'.
Christoper Berry also says:

Interesting, eh?

List of vetos applied during GW150914 detection is here.

 

Thanks again for the great links. You're a wealth of useful information.

I'm most interested in this specific issue:

We actually know for a fact that this statement is not entirely true, and/or it wasn't true originally because this very same signal originally failed the h(t) veto process that was in use at the time of the signal, and it was originally rejected as a potential signal candidate:

Emphasis mine. The original processing software actually rejected the signal with "high confidence" no less. Why? They did in fact have to "worry about it", in fact so much so that they had to actually modify the software and remove a specific (unfortunately unspecified) veto method. I don't need to know which veto methods were applied to the signal, I need to know exactly what veto method they removed from the software. If it wasn't a blip transient veto that they removed, what was it? Was it a magnetometer veto by any chance?

 

Don't you ever get tired of avoiding the *topic* and always taking the low road in debate? Do you have any other "trick", or are you just a one trick personal attack pony?

Sure, in fact one of SelfSim's recent links explains the various options on pages 6 and 7.

http://www.ligo.org/magazine/LIGO-magazine-issue-8.pdf

By modifying/changing the masses of the objects, the spin rates of the objects, precession, the orientation of the objects and the distance parameters, the wave form pattern can be modified at will. There is a *lot* of wiggle room in terms of fitting various signals.

That would be the one that you keep telling when you constantly divert the conversation away from the *topic* and go all "personal" in every post. Sheesh.

As you can see from the link I (actually Selfsim) provided you, I haven't lied about anything, unlike your claim about 3 solar masses being converted to pure energy in a 1/4 second interval resulting in an absolute brightness of -2, and your bogus claim about me confusing 20 milliseconds with a signal that lasted .2 seconds.

You're projecting again which is why you never showed your math related to your false claim about absolute brightness. That's also why you attributed your decimal point error about the signal duration to me instead of yourself.

 

Selfsim,

As any poster would who has dealt with Mozina would know, his favourite MO when cornered is to take you out of context and misrepresent your posts as a desperate attempt in deflecting away from his lack of knowledge or understanding of the subject.
In straightforward vernacular he is prepared to lie through his front teeth rather than admitting he is wrong.

He has unwittingly admitted to this.

The reason why Mozina introduced supernovae into this discussion was to deliberately take me out context.
I had made it perfectly clear that the 3 solar mass loss needed to be explained in the context of accretion material falling into the BHs.
Ironically Mozina's supplied links on V404 are an example of this.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/space/deep-space/a18853/black-hole-brightest-v404-cygni/
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v529/n7584/full/nature16452.html

Using Mozina's own example, V404 has a visual magnitude of around 11.5 at its maximum outburst from a distance of 8000 light years. At 1.3 billion light years V404 would be invisible.
Rather than admitting it would be impossible for accretion matter falling into BHs to be visible from a distance of 1.3 billion light years, Mozina therefore decides to concoct supernovae into the picture and hold me accountable which he even admits is not applicable.

Rather than me reviewing the maths, why doesn't Mozina point the out the errors himself.
After all he is now coming across as an authoritative figure.
The reason is simple, Mozina wouldn't have a clue and is engaging in pure deception to create the impression of knowledge and understanding.

Since supernovae are no longer in the picture even though Mozina accuses me of this "oversight", I could have easily used a figure between +5 to -9 that is related to the BHs progenitor masses.
Even at -9 which is the highest possible luminosity ever measured for a star in the required progenitor mass range it is still extremely faint relative to a -22 galaxy and not be "visually confirmed" from 1.3 billion light years.
It will have an apparent magnitude of 29.0, which exceeds the current record held by the 8.3 metre Subaru telescope as previously mentioned.

What is quite amazing with this quote is that Mozina is totally oblivious to the fact he is using the very same special pleading mechanisms he is accusing everyone else of.
Since his idea is faith based on the principle that all BHs must be "visible", then all BHs must have an accretion disk.
The joke on Mozina however is a study of supermassive BHs in galaxies reveals that only a small percentage of galaxies have active centres. The supermassive BH is only active if matter falls into it. Stellar BHs should be no exception.

Even if all BHs were powered by in-falling matter that made them "visible", Mozina's own V404 example indicates they are not bright enough to be visible from 1.3 billion light years distance.

He has provided a sterling example why there doesn't have to be a visual confirmation.

 

Hey Selfsim,

The illustrations on page 6 and 7 are a maths free designed to make the explanation of GWs as simple as possible.
Unfortunately LIGO have failed..... and Mozina thinks crystal balls exist.

If Mozina understood the illustrations he would know the significance of the 20 ms time interval and why this interval is important in terms of SNR.

 

.....is to keep the conversation focused on the *topic* of conversation. Some folks however cannot admit their mistakes, or they cannot handle the scientific complexities of these conversations, so they "go personal" instead, in post after relentless post. Some like yourself focus almost *exclusively* on the *individual* instead of scientific topic under discussion. It's a real pity.

Was it my personal fault you made that mistake with respect to a -2 absolute brightness from the conversion of three solar masses into pure energy? I didn't put a gun to your head and force you to say things that simply weren't true. You did it all by yourself. When I asked to see the mathematical basis of *your* claim, you refused to show it, and you've been focused on the *individual* ever since! I'd assume that this behavior is due to an inability to admit the mistake in question, and it's psychologically easier to blame me for that mistake.

How could I possibly know that I was wrong, when you've never presented a shred of mathematical support for that -2 absolute brightness figure that you apparently just "made up" in your head?

There is simply no point in continuing to discuss the absolute brightness aspects of such events with you if you are incapable of showing your math, or admitting your mistake. What choice are you going to make?

 

Selfsim,

From reading the "log" file that you presented to me last week, and thinking about this issue a bit over the weekend, the fact that the event in question was originally rejected, and the results were "hand changed" after the fact, casts a serious doubt as to the legitimacy of this claim. There apparently were various software routines in place that were designed to eliminate false alarms and those software routines rejected the signal with a high confidence figure. That would suggest to me that we had software "data quality veto" routines in place that had "high confidence" to reject the signal, and humans later decided this was a "discovery" of gravity waves with 5.1 sigma confidence, based upon the removal of a single software veto routine that was done after the fact. I need to see that specific "data quality" veto routine and the input channels in question, but whatever the reason for original rejection, the exact reason for the original data quality veto rejection, as well as the subsequent change should have been *clearly explained* in the published paper. The fact that these "minor details" were entirely left out of the published paper casts a very strong air of suspicion as to the legitimacy of many of the other claims that were made in the paper.

Specifically which auxiliary channels were associated with the IDQ's "high confidence rejection" and was this confidence figure of rejection provided as a sigma figure from the software? What does the term "unsafe" mean in this context? Define "unsafe" with 5+ sigma confidence as it relates to this specific *human* choice?

 

Based upon that last LIGO paper, I'm adding a 10th item to the growing list of problems with the LIGO "discovery" paper:

1. There is no visual confirmation of this claim even with many instruments that should be capable of verifying the LIGO team's claim of a celestial origin of this signal.
2. There is no void/falsification/verification mechanism applied to *any* celestial origin claim at all, a blatant double standard with respect to other potential causes of the signal in question.
3. There is no specific channel or specific explanation identified or justified for "blip transients", which are routinely seen by both instruments in exactly these frequency ranges and with very similar wave patterns.
4. Blip transients even have a very similar wave form as demonstrated, documented and noted in figure 12 of the supporting document on EM influences considered by LIGO.
5. There is a known and demonstrated coupling mechanism between EM pulse events and the equipment that is being used to detect this signal.
6. No potential long term or "one off" events from geomagnetic or solar influence are taken into account in that highly "fine tuned" 203,000 year figure which is based upon just 16 days of cherry picked "quiet" data.
7. No raw magnetometer data from either detector seems to be publicly available for inspection during the 1/4 second timeline in question. I've been through a lot of the data that is available online, and I've not seen it, but perhaps it's publicly available and someone could just point it out.
8. No relevant satellite magnetosphere observational data was ever compared to any 'blip transient' events, or the 'discovery' event even though whistler waves from the magnetosphere follow similar signal patterns and can occur in these frequencies.
9. The entire paper is based upon the flimsy premise that "Since we can't easily explain the observation in question locally yet, therefore something exotic and 'unseen' that is really far away did it." just like the BICEP2 paper. This type of premise has already been demonstrated to be *fraught* with scientific peril over the long haul, and it's the same basis of the the breakdown of the 5+ BICEP2 claim during peer review, the breakdown of the "dark matter" claim over the past decade, as well as the breakdown of the "standard candle" claim over the past 15 years.
10. No detailed explanation was given for the iDQ rejection, or the subsequent removal of the "data quality veto" method of the iDQ software in the published paper as clearly warranted by the original rejection of this exact signal.

 

Selfsim,

I must admit I get a real laugh how Mozina stumbles from one self induced disaster to the next which he then tries to extricate himself from with the usual lying and diversionary tactics.

Mozina either doesn't understand simple English or the lies are flowing thick and fast.
In my previous post I invited him to point out the errors of my ways, in particular when supernova mechanisms are not even relevant by his own admission.
I even considered the worse case scenario of -9 which is clearly not a "visually confirmed" event from 1.3 billion light years distance.
The absolute brightness of supernovae which are in the -14 to -22 range are not figured into the calculations because they not relevant to merging BHs.

Mozina's tactic of making things up, in this case merging BHs are a supernova like event, which he then admits is wrong, but still wants to pin it on me by not considering supernova absolute magnitudes in the calculations borders on pure comedy.
To keep the laughs going he then shoots himself in the foot by using the example of V404 which is extremely faint from 8000 light years distance let alone if it was 1.3 billion light years away.

W D Clinger has made similar observations of Mozina's behaviour in the old JREF forum which he was eventually booted out of like every other moderated science forum he has participated in.

Selfsim lets not lose sight of the fact, the reason why Mozina wants to focus on this nonsense, or play the victim card was because I showed his V404 links are totally inconsistent with his idea that GWs must be accompanied by a "visual event".
No surprises he did not want to respond to this.

 

Y'know, Michael's issue with the removal of the post-analysis deemed 'unsafe' data quality veto from a low latency channel, (thereby permitting follow-ups by the rest of the astronomical community), would appear as yet another complete duplicate of the denial behavior you describe. Ie: if the analysed veto he is complaining about was not removed, then his much desired EM signal follow-ups would never have happened! (This would constitute yet another self-inflicted foot-shot, as far as I can make out! )

My conclusion is that Michael hasn't even bothered to read:
'Section 4: Mitigating noise sources' from the LIGO Paper:
'Characterization of transient noise in Advanced LIGO relevant to gravitational wave signal GW150914', (already linked to multiple times in this thread), where they explain the definitions of 'safe' and 'unsafe', as being based on the probabilities of specific active vetos accidentally resulting in the non-detection of valid h(t) signals.

What I find confounding about this, is that he has somehow already formed a very fixed, almost consipiratorial idea of why they removed the veto, without having first done the most basic research on how these vetos are developed, and the rationale for their application, or removal from the processing stream!?! (Otherwise he wouldn't be making his point #10 demand).

Whilst I don't think anyone can be reasonably blamed for missing something written in the voluminous quantity of LIGO reports already written about this discovery, I do think that forming very strong and fixed conspiratorial notions, without first doubting one's own knowledge of such a topic, is about as ignorant and as irresponsible as it gets, for any web based astro-amateur enthusiast!

Very disappointing ... but there it is ... right in front of our own eyes!

 

Indeed. He shot himself in both feet followed by inserting both feet into his mouth by boldly declaring LIGO never considered EM effects.

Even if Mozina decided to "read" the paper, it becomes an exercise in reading in ones own prejudices and ignoring any inconvenient truths that might clash with the ideology.
This has been demonstrated multiple times in this thread.

While the paper referred to in this thread touches on the subject of transient noise and degree of safety of a veto, it is covered in far greater detail here.
https://dcc.ligo.org/public/0122/P1500238/022/P1500238_GW150914_noise_characterization.pdf

I like how another manifestation of the conspiratorial aspect was LIGO not revealing their magnetometer measurements.
In fact LIGO didn't reveal any measurements from their PEMs such as their 1 and 3-axis accelerometers, microphone, temperature sensor, 3-axis seismometers, tilt-meter, high frequency radio, mains voltage meter, optical lever, radio receiver and weather station.
If Mozina wants the magnetometer readings then he should ask for them!!!

Absolutely!