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    Ettin in the Playground
     
    Griffon

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    Default Do gravity waves have a polarity?

    Light waves do, I think sound waves don't, I'm sort of imagining that gravity waves don't, but does anybody know of a proof?
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    Barbarian in the Playground
     
    PaladinGuy

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    Default Re: Do gravity waves have a polarity?

    Quote Originally Posted by halfeye View Post
    Light waves do, I think sound waves don't, I'm sort of imagining that gravity waves don't, but does anybody know of a proof?
    Gravitons and Photons are vaguely analogous, which would suggest they could be polarised (but then you have Phonons so)

    Light waves polarisation is because the thing that varies (Electric and Magnetic field strength) is a Vector quantity, and the Vector quantity is at 90 degrees to the movement of the wave.
    Accoustic waves the movement in in the direction of the wave, and if considered a pressure wave then is a scalar quantity.

    Gravitational waves would involve a changing gravitational field strength (which is a vector), but which direction does it apply?

    Spoiler: further musing well beyond my depth
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    Well in the one frame of reference (that of the wave), we can discount the magnetism, and say you just see the Electric Field that would of existed at the time the wave was there if you considered it electrostatically.
    This is presumbably true for gravitational waves.

    For an electric dipole, the field strength is [practically] zero when you are aligned with the dipole (you always see the charges acting in the same direction). I think you could effectively say the converse, that the amplitude of a wave in a given direction is thus related to the component of the electric field perpendicular to the waves.
    That presumably also applies for gravitational fields.

    ______________________
    Ahh, found something
    It's only Wikipedia but https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravit..._and_behaviour
    "Gravitational waves are polarized because of the nature of their source." and a picture from Nasa including Polarised background waves
    Last edited by jayem; 2018-03-03 at 05:16 PM.

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    OldWizardGuy

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    Default Re: Do gravity waves have a polarity?

    Quote Originally Posted by halfeye View Post
    Light waves do, I think sound waves don't, I'm sort of imagining that gravity waves don't, but does anybody know of a proof?
    Gravity waves or gravitational waves?

    According to Wikipedia, gravitational waves have a polarity, but only over a range from 0 to 90° (unlike light, which can be polarized in a range of directions from 0 to 180°).

    However, gravity waves such as ocean waves do not, I believe, have a polarity. It's not like ocean waves can vibrate in any direction except up and down, right?

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    Firbolg in the Playground
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    Default Re: Do gravity waves have a polarity?

    Gravitons are tensor waves, so they should actually have a more complicated set of polarizations than light.

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    PaladinGuy

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    Default Re: Do gravity waves have a polarity?

    As I remember it, something to remember is that gravity does not usually go around in particles.

    When you get light you get a stream of photons - OK they are both a wave and a particle, but they behave as particles which is why they are both.

    With Gravity (and magnetism) what you get is a field (I have no idea how this works) but the particles are not there. To actually get a gravity particle (is that the Higgs boson?) takes a huge amount of energy and luck.

    It's a bit simpler with electromagnetism - you can have an electric or a magnetic field and you can also have a flow of electricity (electrons), but they are not actually the same thing, or rather they are different manifestations of the same thing...

    No, I don't understand this one at all.

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    Firbolg in the Playground
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    Default Re: Do gravity waves have a polarity?

    I think that points to difficulties in quantizing gravity, but I'm not sure that there's observational support to say definitively that gravitational waves aren't quantized. It just ends up introducing divergences you can't get rid of when you try to do it with the same approach you'd use for quantizing the electromagnetic field.

    Outside of that issue, at least for any quantizable cases, 'field', 'wave', and 'particle' are all essentially different mathematical descriptions of the same thing. So the only thing I'm a bit iffy on is the particular shape of the way that quantizing gravity fails and how that relates to the feasibility of gravitons as 'proper' quantized particles. Gravitons would not be the same thing as the Higgs boson though, and they'd be extremely low-mass if not zero, due to how long-ranged gravitational effects are.
    Last edited by NichG; 2018-03-04 at 03:36 AM.

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    Lord Torath's Avatar

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    Default Re: Do gravity waves have a polarity?

    Quote Originally Posted by Khedrac View Post
    To actually get a gravity particle (is that the Higgs boson?) takes a huge amount of energy and luck.
    No. Gravitons are the theoretical particle (hypothetical? none have yet been detected to my knowledge) that transmit the force of gravity. Higgs Bosuns are responsible for mass.
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    PaladinGuy

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    Default Re: Do gravity waves have a polarity?

    Quote Originally Posted by Lord Torath View Post
    No. Gravitons are the theoretical particle (hypothetical? none have yet been detected to my knowledge) that transmit the force of gravity. Higgs Bosuns are responsible for mass.
    I like the idea of a Higgs Bosun - presumably they would be responsible for loading and cargo distribution.

    And as for the particle being responsible for mass - that really makes my head hurt.

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    georgie_leech's Avatar

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    Default Re: Do gravity waves have a polarity?

    Quote Originally Posted by Khedrac View Post
    I like the idea of a Higgs Bosun - presumably they would be responsible for loading and cargo distribution.

    And as for the particle being responsible for mass - that really makes my head hurt.
    My understanding is less that the particles are responsible for mass, but that they're an indication of the Higgs Field, which is.
    Quote Originally Posted by Grod_The_Giant View Post
    We should try to make that a thing; I think it might help civility. Hey, GitP, let's try to make this a thing: when you're arguing optimization strategies, RAW-logic, and similar such things that you'd never actually use in a game, tag your post [THEORETICAL] and/or use green text

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    PaladinGuy

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    Default Re: Do gravity waves have a polarity?

    Quote Originally Posted by georgie_leech View Post
    My understanding is less that the particles are responsible for mass, but that they're an indication of the Higgs Field, which is.
    Seeing as I had confused them with gravity and was just making that very point about gravity, for me to forget it for the Higgs boson is very careless - thank-you - that does really help.

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    Lord Torath's Avatar

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    Default Re: Do gravity waves have a polarity?

    Quote Originally Posted by Khedrac View Post
    I like the idea of a Higgs Bosun - presumably they would be responsible for loading and cargo distribution.
    Yeah, I wanted to make that joke, but couldn't quite frame it right. And it luks lyke I stil have meny moor wurds I nede to lern to spel.
    Warhammer 40,000 Campaign Skirmish Game: Warpstrike
    My Spelljammer stuff (including an orbit tracker), 2E AD&D spreadsheet, and Vault of the Drow maps are available in my Dropbox. Feel free to use or not use it as you see fit!
    Thri-Kreen Ranger/Psionicist by me, based off of Rich's A Monster for Every Season

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