In general, science makes a drastic progress when a certain experimental result confirms or disproves the known existing theoretical framework that defines the contemporary paradigm of science. This happened in history when Galileo found that Jupiter has eclipse like the moon and has four moons of its own which provided the strong evidences that support the heliocentric view of the universe while it has been generally believed that the earth was at the center of the universe mainly due to the Biblical doctrine as well as Aristotle’s teachings if not the obvious daily sensory perception that the Sun circles around the earth day in and day out.
It may not be off the mark to state that the current major paradigm of science is still defined by Newtonian mechanics. Momentum is conserved when there is no external force that compels the motion of the object in the direction of the movement as well as the energy that is within the moving object. Thermodynamics, known Electromagnetism and all other major physical disciplines do not circumvent this major paradigm of the presently known scientific doctrine. Please note that I intentionally put “known” in front of Electromagnetism because I noticed there is also a remarkable anomaly within Electromagnetism itself that also seriously challenges this well known paradigm.
If anyone has noticed, the discovery of dipole gravity in general relativity means that the major challenge to this paradigm has begun. It proposes a major mechanical system that can break the three hundred year old paradigm of physics. Basically what it means is that the local energy momentum is influenced by some unknown energetic particles in the universe in such a way that one can devise a specific mechanical system that can funnel the background energy into the local arena.
When an ultra compact stellar object rotates fast, this is exactly what is happening in the surrounding area of the rotating star in such a way that the jet streams gain tremendous amount of energy while being ejected. Within the paradigm of dipole gravity, this is natural and inevitable.
To corroborate this observation, the astounding energy efficiency factor of the jets has been studied and reported in the recently published paper by Steve Allen and Christopher Reynolds.
Then the next question is “what do we gain by proving the existence of the quadrupole gravitational radiation by spending billions of dollars?” “What kind of industrial benefit would it produce?”
First off, its detection would not produce any result that may challenge the existing paradigm of science although it may provide one more test that proves general relativity is a correct theory of the universe.
Secondly, I seriously doubt if there will be any tangible industrial applications or benefits of the result since the system involves astronomically massive objects to produce the quadrupole gravitational radiation effect.
In science fiction story, one could easily argue that one can have a very different communication technology using the quadrupole gravitational radiation. However, in terms of the available energy scale, this will be hardly practical.
Would it be a waste of money, time and energy?
I wouldn’t necessarily call it that way before there were no other alternatives. But now when the new test of general relativity is proposed and available, a part of the effort of LIGO/LISA can be used to test dipole gravity predictions because it costs much less and the impact of the result can be significant in all aspect of our lives.
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