LI(e)GO Nobel Physics?

The detected signal of amplitude $10^{-22}$ lasting a fraction of a second supposedly coming from collision of the most violent event of a merger of two massive black holes 1.3 billion years ago.

With the announcement today of the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics:

• "for decisive contributions to the LIGO detector and the observation of gravitational waves"
• On 14 September 2015, the universe’s gravitational waves were observed for the very first time. The waves, which were predicted by Albert Einstein a hundred years ago, came from a collision between two black holes. It took 1.3 billion years for the waves to arrive at the LIGO detector in the USA. 
• The signal was extremely weak when it reached Earth, but is already promising a revolution in astrophysics. Gravitational waves are an entirely new way of observing the most violent events in space and testing the limits of our knowledge.

I cannot refrain from recalling my earlier posts on this issue posing some serious questions: How is it possible to connect a largest possible cause (collision/merger of two black holes) to a smallest possible effect (measurement with precision of the thickness of a hair on a distance of 4 light years) according to Einstein's equations which are not understood and cannot be solved, and as an inverse problem draw conclusion about the very big cause from the very small effect? Compare with these questions. See also this detailed criticism. And this analysis with comment here. Also this.

If gravitational waves exist as "ripples in the fabric of space-time", whatever that means, why are they so incredibly tiny? And if they now are so incredibly tiny, what importance do they carry? Can they really be used as carriers of specific information?

LIGO is an example of Big Physics in the sense of Building a Biggest Possible Detector for detection of a Smallest Possible Effect from a Biggest Possible Cause.

Of course, if you build a Biggest Detector like LIGO in search of Smallest Possible Effect, it is only a question of time before you discover Some Small Effect.

But how can you go from there to a Unique Big Cause?

To me it seems to require a mathematical model of infinite precision, and what says that Einstein's (unsolvable) equations carry that precision?

In any case, I remain skeptical until more evidence is presented.  Here is the story we are supposed to buy. Is this real physics, or is it fake physics?

In Advanced Information (about LIGO) we further read:

• Gravitational waves are travelling ripples in space-time.
• A passing gravitational wave is expected to distort space-time through the effects of strain in a very specific way, predicted by the general theory of relativity.
• It is easy to reproduce these results qualitatively without detailed calculations using the full power of general relativity.
• The most likely interpretation for this evolution is the inspiral of two orbiting massive bodies, while emitting gravitational radiation.

We see several caveats: "ripples of space.time", "predicted by the general theory", "it is easy...without detailed calculation using the full power...", "the most likely"...

As soon as you hear "it is easy" concerning a mathematical equation, you should be on your guard...since usually it means the opposite...

Absurdity of Modern Physics: LIGO Gravitational Wave Detection as Ill-posed Problem.

                                    Simple mathematical modelling of gravitational waves.  

The BIG NEWS from the physics community is the announced experimental detection of gravitational waves:

• Long ago, deep in space, two massive black holes—the ultrastrong gravitational fields left behind by gigantic stars that collapsed to infinitesimal points—slowly drew together. The stellar ghosts spiraled ever closer, until, about 1.3 billion years ago, they whirled about each other at half the speed of light and finally merged. The collision sent a shudder through the universe: ripples in the fabric of space and time called gravitational waves. Five months ago, they washed past Earth. And, for the first time, physicists detected the waves, fulfilling a 4-decade quest and opening new eyes on the heavens.
• LIGO researchers sensed a wave that stretched space making the entire Earth expand and contract by 1/100,000 of a nanometer, about the width of an atomic nucleus.  
•  The oscillation emerged at a frequency of 35 cycles per second, or Hertz, and sped up to 250 Hz before disappearing 0.25 seconds later.
• Comparison with computer simulations reveals that the wave came from two objects 29 and 36 times as massive as the sun spiraling to within 210 kilometers of each other before merging.
• The collision produced an astounding, invisible explosion. Modeling shows that the final black hole totals 62 solar masses—3 solar masses less than the sum of the initial black holes. The missing mass vanished in gravitational radiation—a conversion of mass to energy that makes an atomic bomb look like a spark. “For a tenth of a second [the collision] shines brighter than all of the stars in all the galaxies,” Allen says. “But only in gravitational waves.”
• “It will win a Nobel Prize,” says Marc Kamionkowski, a theorist at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland.

We understand that an expansion-contraction of the Earth of the size of an atom nucleus diameter as an effect of a "ripple in the fabric of space-time" was detected during 0.25 seconds, and from this observation the conclusion is drawn by computer simulations and modelling that this extremely minute effect as a "ripple in the fabric of space-time", was the result of a very specific extremely gigantic invisible explosion 1.3 billion light years away shining brighter than all stars in all galaxies for 0.25 seconds in the form of gravitational waves. 

We see a combination of a biggest possible cause/input and a smallest possible effect/output in a certain mathematical model. The conclusion comes from using this mathematical model in inverse form, where a smallest possible signal is used to identify a biggest possible origin of the signal. 

This means that the mathematical model in inverse form is extremely ill-posed and as such cannot be used to draw conclusions. To do so requires that all alternative explanations of the zero signal can be eliminated, and it is then not enough to just say that no other explanation immediately suggest themselves, that is to draw conclusions from ignorance with the precision of the conclusions increasing as the ignorance or stupidity grows. 

Ripples in the Fabric of Space and Time?

The code word of modern physics is:

• fabric of space and time

which is the subject of study of the Advanced LIGO project designed to

• observe gravitational waves—ripples in the fabric of space and time. 

If we dare to ask what the meaning of "fabric of space and time" may be, we get the following illuminating lesson by leading physicists:

• First of all, space-time is not a fabric. Space and time are not tangible 'things' in the same way that water and air are. It is incorrect to think of them as a 'medium' at all. 
• No physicist or astronomer versed in these issues considers space-time to be a truly physical medium, however, that is the way in which our minds prefer to conceptualize this concept, and has done so since the 19th century. 
• We really do not know what space-time is, other than two clues afforded by quantum mechanics and general relativity.
• Space-time does not claim existence in its own right, but only as a structural quality of the [gravitational] field. (Einstein)
• Space and time coordinates are just four out of many degrees of freedom we need, to specify a self-consistent theory. What we are going to have [in any future Theory of Everything] is not so much a new view of space and time, but a de-emphasis of space and time. (Steven Weinberg)
• In the theory of gravity, you can't really separate the structure of space and time from the particles which are associated with the force of gravity [ such as gravitons]. The notion of a string is inseparable from the space and time in which it moves. (Michael Greene)

The punch line of this educational experience is presented in this way: 

• So, the question about what happens to space-time when a particle moves through it at near the speed of light is answered by saying that this is the wrong question to ask. Just because the brain can construct a question doesn't mean that the question has a physical answer!

We understand that LIGO in its search for "ripples in the fabric of space and time" is studying "the wrong question" and thus can be viewed as a study into the ""fabric of fantasy" which has become such a fundamental part of modern physics demanding full devotion by the sharpest brains of modern physicists (see also here ):

LIGO: Absurdity of Big Physics

The Advanced LIGO Project has now been launched as the largest single experiment ever funded by NSF at $0.365 billion:

• The LIGO scientific and engineering team at Caltech and MIT has been leading the effort over the past seven years to build Advanced LIGO, the world's most sensitive gravitational-wave detector.
• Gravitational waves were predicted by Albert Einstein in 1916 as a consequence of his general theory of relativity, and are emitted by violent events in the universe such as exploding stars and colliding black holes. 
• Experimental attempts to find gravitational waves have been on going for over 50 years, and they haven't yet been found. They're both very rare and possess signal amplitudes that are exquisitely tiny.
• Although earlier LIGO runs revealed no detections, Advanced LIGO, also funded by the NSF, increases the sensitivity of the observatories by a factor of 10, resulting in a thousandfold increase in observable candidate objects. 
• The original configuration of LIGO was sensitive enough to detect a change in the lengths of the 4-kilometer arms by a distance one-thousandth the diameter of a proton; this is like accurately measuring the distance from Earth to the nearest star—over four light-years—to within the width of a human hair. 
• Advanced LIGO, which will utilize the infrastructure of LIGO, is much more powerful.
• The improved instruments will be able to look at the last minutes of the life of pairs of massive black holes as they spiral closer together, coalesce into one larger black hole, and then vibrate much like two soap bubbles becoming one. 
• In addition, Advanced LIGO will be used to search for the gravitational cosmic background, allowing tests of theories about the development of the universe only $10^{-35}$ seconds after the Big Bang.

Read these numbers: The accuracy of old LIGO was  

• the diameter of a human hair over a distance of 4 light-years, 
• $10^{-35}$ seconds after Big Bang,

and yet not the slightest little gravitational wave signal was recorded from even the most violent large scale phenomena thinkable. The conclusion should be clear: There are no gravitational waves. After all, why should there be any? By Einstein's general relativity which nobody claims to grasp?

But this is not the way Big Physics works: The fact that nothing was found by the infinitely sensitive LIGO requires an even more infinitely sensitive Advanced LIGO at a cost of a half a billion to be built by eager physicists, and after Advanced LIGO has found nothing, funding for an Advanced Advanced LIGO will be requested and so on...but why are tax payers supplying this Big Money?