SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Gravitational wave detectors could provide advance notice of seismic waves caused by powerful earthquakes (magnitude 8.5 and greater), allowing a little more time for people to evacuate (particularly at coastal regions that may be endangered by a tsunami):
Gravity signals that race through the ground at the speed of light could help seismologists get a better handle on the size of large, devastating quakes soon after they hit, a study suggests. The tiny changes in Earth's gravitational field, created when the ground shifts, arrive at seismic-monitoring stations well before seismic waves.
"The good thing we can do with these signals is have quick information on the magnitude of the quake," says Martin Vallée, a seismologist at the Paris Institute of Earth Physics.
Seismometers in China and South Korea picked up gravity signals immediately after the magnitude-9.1 Tohoku earthquake that devastated parts of Japan in 2011, Vallée and his colleagues report in Science on December 1. The signals appear as tiny accelerations on seismic-recording equipment, more than a minute before the seismic waves show up.
Observations and modeling of the elastogravity signals preceding direct seismic waves (DOI: 10.1126/science.aao0746) (DX)
Related: First Joint Detection of Gravitational Waves by LIGO and Virgo
The Nobel Physics Prize Has Been Awarded to 3 Scientists for Discoveries in Gravitational Waves
"Kilonova" Observed Using Gravitational Waves, Sparking Era of "Multimessenger Astrophysics"
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday December 05 2017, @03:20PM (3 children)
Two things to note. First, this actually is a possible future improvement for HFT - it's not just a throwaway comment. If one can communicate through the Earth at the speed of light (in vacuum) then that's 20 ms faster than any speed of light path around the Earth (much less the current communication delay around Earth which is both longer path and slower than speed of light in vacuum). But I guess credible valuable technology spinoffs from HFT (which for example could include better tsunami warnings from large earthquakes in this hypothetical example) run counter to the narrative.
Second, there are vast sums spent in science funding. There's no point to pretending that anyone is being miserly with that. If it's not doing the job you expect it to do, then maybe you ought to look at the efficiency of the projects being funded rather than ignorantly demand more money. But that again runs counter to the narrative.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 05 2017, @04:46PM (2 children)
If you compare science funding to military funding you'll see we are being miserly with it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 05 2017, @09:40PM
Just the most obvious here: earthquake research relies on military navigation satellites.
Then computers, the internet...
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday December 06 2017, @06:53AM
Ok, what makes you think that? The consequences of an inadequate military are far more dire than the consequences of inadequate public funding of scientific research. In addition, the latter can always be funded by the private world when the public one fails to provide. It's also worth noting here that more was spend on R&D [fas.org] in 2015 than was spend on military spending [nationalpriorities.org].
versus