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LIGO Controversy

I am astounded to discover there are scientists who have openly voiced their concerns with LIGO. LIGO won a Nobel Prize in 2017.
I found a news story from June 11, 2019.

I found this story only because Sabine Hossenfelder mentioned it in her 'backreaction' blog.
I have seen some of her youtube videos about cosmology but she uses standard cosmology like black holes.
Her blog entry (attached) on September 4, 2019 was titled: 'What's up with LIGO?'
I did not expect to find a LIGO controversy from this physicist.

In her post she included a link to a .de web page.

Google Chrome does a translation for me, for this web page.
Its title in English: 'Fake news from the universe'
I hope others can either read the original  or get their own translation. Otherwise you can decide whether the following  is trustworthy.

I believe I can offer excerpts in English here.

From my browser's translation:
'
For two months now this new "window to the universe" is in operation and finds - nothing. Although there were not a few alerts from LIGO / VIRGO, but not a single signal that could have confirmed the large terrestrial or space telescopes. The astronomers are already slightly annoyed about the wasted observation time and ask questions. What's happening?

This surprising result should be a reason to take a closer look at the publications on gravitational wave observation over the last three years.

The statistical disturbances caused by random vibrations of the 3000 km distant LIGO laboratories had inexplicable correlations . Only the gravitational wave itself should be visible in both laboratories - with a corresponding delay due to the light propagation time. After ignoring the results of the Danish working group for a while, a group of eight scientists traveled to Copenhagen in August 2017 to discuss data analysis with their critics.

The gravitational wave researchers had to admit some mistakes, among other things, that the central figure in the journal Physical Review Letters was not created with the original data, but prepared for "illustrative purposes" - embarrassing for an article that was downloaded a hundred thousand times and was the basis of the Nobel Prize 2017, At the meeting in Copenhagen the photo of the blackboard was created. One of the leading LIGO scientists, Duncan Brown, promised to work with his colleagues for the correction - which has not happened to this day.

Meanwhile, Jackson's group has even proved that a so-called template, a theoretically calculated signal used for analysis, was subsequently replaced.

It is extremely remarkable that with this unprejudiced method none of the more than twenty detected gravitational wave signals could be reliably detected - except for the first signal GW150914 in September 2015. Now one could argue that this first signal provided proof and danger banned that the following signals were caused by arbitrary filtering of random noise.

Of course, this is still no evidence of manipulation, but it would be given the quite existing internal doubts certainly appropriate that LIGO makes its own investigations to more transparent.

However one evaluates these events, it remains the fact that after three more years of operation and meanwhile triple sensitivity of detectors GW150914 is still the strongest signal of all. A coincidence that gets stranger every day.

For many, therefore, the strongest evidence for gravitational waves is based on the August 2017 GW170817 signal discovered by LIGO and then confirmed by the Fermi (NASA) and Integral (ESA ) gamma-ray / gamma-ray telescopes , but with very weak signal. at any rate, it was presented at the press conference.

In truth, it was the other way round: Fermi had sent the notification email first, and LIGO needed four hours to "predict" the sky position - which was consistent with the coordinates already known. The false impression that LIGO was the first one arose simply from the fact that after an explicit request by LIGO the subject line of the alert mail had been modified (see picture).

In addition to these inconsistencies, well-known experts contradict the interpretation that the signal comes from merging neutron stars. According to an author collet from nine renowned institutes, this is only possible through "extreme models" of the corresponding galaxies, while an Italian working group assigns the gamma-ray signal (or the afterglow) to a fusion of white dwarfs. But they can not send gravitational waves.

So there remain considerable doubts as to whether GW170817 was really confirmed by other telescopes or whether it was even a gravitational wave.
'

End of my excerpts from  my browser's translation.

I hope this story is from a reliable source. Sabine trusted it. If it is accurate, this story is truly a sensational revelation.

Perhaps the reader will reach the same disturbing conclusion as I did: LIGO has no credibility.

I have posted about my skepticism about LIGO. Now I find others were very skeptical in 2017, even questioning the first LIGO event in 2015.

link


I added this comment:

Cosmology cannot explain how LIGO works. The merger of 2 BH affects space time. In the context of spacetime the merger is NOT observed using classical physics. That  change in a distant gravitational field results in what is known as an earth tide. Instead the merger is claimed to result in the conversion of some mass into the energy of gravitational waves.
These waves  are not defined.
from Wikipedia:
'
Gravitational waves transport energy as gravitational radiation, a form of radiant energy similar to electromagnetic radiation. Newton's law of universal gravitation, part of classical mechanics, does not provide for their existence, since that law is predicated on the assumption that physical interactions propagate instantaneously (at infinite speed) – showing one of the ways the methods of classical physics are unable to explain phenomena associated with relativity.
'
Gravity is instantaneous with Newton  but not Einstein.
Gravitational radiation is 'similar' to EMR but never defined.
Despite a lack of definition, LIGO was designed to detect it. LIGO documents describe its equipment as listening for a frequency like sound. However, sound requires a medium and how this undefined energy can vibrate Earth's crust is not defined. I will be cynical and call this 'a spooky action at a distance.' LIGO detects changes in its interferometers with an expected frequency and concludes - that's one!


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