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From: weemba@brahms.BERKELEY.EDU (Matthew P. Wiener)
Newsgroups: net.physics
Subject: Re: Build a Gravity-Wave Detector from Radio Shack parts
Message-ID: <12389@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: Fri, 14-Mar-86 19:42:48 EST
Article-I.D.: ucbvax.12389
Posted: Fri Mar 14 19:42:48 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 15-Mar-86 22:38:46 EST
References: <221@nyit.UUCP>
Sender: usenet@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Reply-To: weemba@brahms.UUCP (Matthew P. Wiener)
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Organization: University of California, Berkeley
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In article <221@nyit.UUCP> bp@nyit.UUCP (Bruce Perens) writes:
>Would one of you physics gurus please check out the April 1986
>issue of Radio Electronics, page 53, article `Gravity Waves?',
>by Gregory Hodowanec, and tell me if this is an April Fool's
>article?

Your summary includes enough boners that your conclusion that it
is an April Fool's Hoax is correct.

>         The author contends that monopole gravity waves exist,

Not by any current theory.  Standard general relativity, really
the only theory in agreement with experiment, predicts that there
won't even be dipole radiation.  Quadrupole moments are the best
one can detect.

>and that they cause the 1/f noise in electronic circuits.

Hahaha.  Maybe it would help if you blew up some supernovas in your
back yard or something.  Gravitational radiation is WEAK.

>                                                           He
>contends that gravitational effects propogate instantaneously.

They propagate at the speed of light.

>He goes into an odd cosmology called `Rhysmonic Cosmology'.

Odd is right.  Try also fictitious.

>He presents schematics for gravity wave detectors using not much
>more than op-amps and a capacitor as the detector.

And a vivid imagination.

>All of this sounds rather crack-pot to me, but I'm not qualified
>to understand his arguments. Would one of you please look at them?

Known and putative gravitational waves near the earth cause vibrations
on the order of magnitude of atoms or less.  Without supercooling and
shielding from extraneous vibrations, it is impossible to detect such
waves, period.

So it's either completely looney or a deliberate hoax.

ucbvax!brahms!weemba	Matthew P Wiener/UCB Math Dept/Berkeley CA 94720