LIGO movie!!

[nibot]

The NSF has sponsored the production of a 20-minute video about LIGO (the project I am working on).

The results are hilarious! Watch it here: http://www.ligo.caltech.edu/einstein.ram

Comments

[in-alaska.livejournal.com]

It's a little pathetic, though.

[kphiker.livejournal.com]

so are both observatories up and running? if so, how long have they been operational?

Re: thanks for the redirect

[nibot.livejournal.com]

todd matthews?

hmm. I doubt the curvature of the earth matters at all over 4 km.

The earth's radius is 6378 km according to Google, which gives a circumference of 2πr = 40074 km. Therefore 4km represents one tenthousandth of the circumference of the earth, or an angle of 0.002859 degrees. So if you extended a line out from a point of tangency, after 4km it would be (6378 km)*Sin[0.00289] = 0.636 meters above the surface.

The ligo beam is, however, straight, and I'm told the beam enclosure is straight too. Actually the beam of light curves ever so slightly due to Earth's gravity, but this isn't important.