Re: Gravitational Waves

Quantum Ranger wrote:
Do/can?.. gravitational waves from two distinct and separate locations
re-enforce each other (or cancel each other out)..if the waves meet at
one location?

They certainly can. But they do not superimpose linearly as do most other waves, because the field equation is nonlinear. I believe there are known manifolds in which a collection of gravitational waves impinge on a region of spacetime such that a singularity and black hole form there.

As for all other types of waves, getting gravitational waves to cancel in a given region pretty much would require propagating waves from a single source over two different paths to the region in question (canceling everywhere is not possible). But the complex nature of gravitational radiation makes this MUCH more difficult than for EM or water waves.


Tom Roberts
.

Relevant Pages

  • cancelled but not cancelled, was Re: Standing-Wave Current vs Traveling-Wave Current now,
    ... canceled waves after they are canceled. ... This is after all an antennas group, so lets take a real antenna. ... 160m verticals that are 1/2 wavelength apart over a pretty darn good ground. ... where the waves perfectly cancel, then keep walking and just 1/4 wave later ...
    (rec.radio.amateur.antenna)
  • Re: Antenna reception theory
    ... He never gets around to explaining how these two waves, which exactly cancel at all points in space and at all times, can contain any energy at all. ... Any way you cut it, my approach is consistent with the laws of physics as enumerated in "Optics", by Hecht, and yours leads to a contradiction of those laws of physics. ...
    (rec.radio.amateur.antenna)
  • Re: Constructive interference in radiowave propagation
    ... It is a useful picture showing how sine waves with differing phases add ... -- a physical interface of some sort. ... collinear waves that perfectly cancel over some small finite volume ...
    (rec.radio.amateur.antenna)
  • Re: Standing-Wave Current vs Traveling-Wave Current WAS rraa Laugh Riot continues
    ... two waves that canceled cannot cease to exist. ... them because there was never anything to cancel. ... you are saying the lack of reflections causes the reflections ...
    (rec.radio.amateur.antenna)
  • Re: Constructive interference in radiowave propagation
    ... propagating in a linear medium could cancel over some non-zero finite ... The waves involved in the cancellation are ... the energy analysis falls out from the voltage analysis. ...
    (rec.radio.amateur.antenna)