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Well... it's Trump... again. #47, here we go.

The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory is one of the most incredible scientific instruments man has ever created! I'd post this to a science thread except for the grim punchline.

If you're unfamiliar with LIGO, check out this Veritasium video. It starts by describing a black-hole collision that for one-tenth of a second released 50X more energy than everything else in the observable universe combined. Superlatives just go on from there. LIGO detects changes in distance of 10^-21, that's the ratio of the distance to Alpha Centauri over the width of a human hair. And so on. "The Absurdity of Detecting Gravitational Waves" is a fun video if you've not yet seen it.

One of the many "absurdities" of LIGO is that TWO observatories are required 3000 kilometers apart. The instruments are so sensitive that tiny noises will be picked up, so the signal is constructed by comparing the TWO signals so far apart. Having BOTH observatories detect gravitational waves is absolutely essentially.

A largish investment was required to build these systems (though still less than a Taylor Swift tour, or a week of NFL salaries, or even one of the Trump family's major grifts). And the two observatories, already built, can be maintained for just $25 million each per year.

Have you guessed the punchline? One of the geniuses in the Trump Administration is halving their already tiny budget: One observatory (which just spews out random noise without its sister) is enough! All federal subsidies must be cut to pay for the magnificent new Gold House Ballroom.
 
Swammerdami said:
The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory is one of the most incredible scientific instruments man has ever created! I'd post this to a science thread except for the grim punchline.

If you're unfamiliar with LIGO, check out this Veritasium video. It starts by describing a black-hole collision that for one-tenth of a second released 50X more energy than everything else in the observable universe combined. Superlatives just go on from there. LIGO detects changes in distance of 10^-21, that's the ratio of the distance to Alpha Centauri over the width of a human hair. And so on. "The Absurdity of Detecting Gravitational Waves" is a fun video if you've not yet seen it.

One of the many "absurdities" of LIGO is that TWO observatories are required 3000 kilometers apart. The instruments are so sensitive that tiny noises will be picked up, so the signal is constructed by comparing the TWO signals so far apart. Having BOTH observatories detect gravitational waves is absolutely essentially.

A largish investment was required to build these systems (though still less than a Taylor Swift tour, or a week of NFL salaries, or even one of the Trump family's major grifts). And the two observatories, already built, can be maintained for just $25 million each per year.

Have you guessed the punchline? One of the geniuses in the Trump Administration is halving their already tiny budget: One observatory (which just spews out random noise without its sister) is enough! All federal subsidies must be cut to pay for the magnificent new Gold House Ballroom.
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LIGO was mentioned in a Kip Thorne book I read back in the late 90s. I was so excited at the prospect, but it was several years from completion. Then nothing. :( And then they updated it to be even more sensitive, like to the scale of an alt-right-winger when exposed to a logo rebrand. And boom! It is the most fucking awesome thing ever created.

Looks like it is worse than thought.
article said:
However, in its proposed budget for 2026, the Trump administration would slash the National Science Foundation’s (NSF’s) $9 billion budget by 57%, and, as part that cut, trim LIGO’s annual operating budget from $48 million to $29 million. The proposed budget explicitly calls for eliminating one of LIGO’s interferometers, but doesn’t specify which one. In a two-sentence email to Science, an NSF spokesperson said the plan reflects “a strategic alignment of resources in a constrained fiscal environment.”
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Not as bad shuttering James Webb Telescope, but pretty bad.
 
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