>yep, there goes another gravitational wave

What exactly is the point?

I get why the subject is interesting, and I get the role it played in the past in confirming g waves exist.
But it's not sensitive enough to do much other than confirm that fact. Why not shut it down and use the money saved for a bigger/better one that could actually teach us something?

>>16726337 (OP)
It cost a lot more to build the thing than it does to run it.

>>16726337 (OP)
>What exactly is the point?
to learn how to build them? or you want to spend a billion dollars on something no one has ever built before

>>16726337 (OP)
>But it's not sensitive enough to do much other than confirm that fact.
it wasn't a fact before it was confirmed you utter fucking subhuman brainlet

>>16726337 (OP)
>What exactly is the point?
As we uncover more about how gwaves work and the processes that generate them, we understand how to use them as a diagnostic. Nearly all of our ability to learn about the rest of the universe currently relies on studying light waves or particles; gravitational waves could be a completely new way to study distant objects.

>>16726337 (OP)
>What exactly is the point?
You either fund the projects or the physics community wont give lessons to the engineers that industry needs. Physicists wont settle for being teachers.

>>16726337 (OP)
It's a white/japanese thing, don't worry about it.

>>16726432
Your pet rice monkeys are not in the same league as us.

Gravitational waves were already known to exist from the Hulse-Taylor binary pulsar.
The point of gravitational wave detectors like LIGO and VIRGO is to observe what astrophysical systems are out there. Just like studying the universe in different EM wavelengths (radio, x-rays, optical) tells you different things about the universe, GWs show objects and information that we can't otherwise.
For example they discovered this huge plethora of black holes from 10 to 100 solar masses, which are way too massive to be from supernovae. These were not seen in x-ray binaries. Where do these black holes come from? Where are these mergers taking place? All completely unclear.
Then there are the merging neutron stars, sadly only one has been detected thus far. But it proved definitively that GWs and light propagate at the same speed, which ruled out dozens of crazy alternative cosmologies. The gravitational wave data enables for a direct estimate of the distance to the merger, with a dozen or so of these they will robustly measure the Hubble constant, how fast the universe expands. This would be completely independent of all the problems which plague other techniques (supernovae, dust...). These could shed light on whether the Hubble tension is real, or just systematic errors in local measurements.
>Why not shut it down and use the money saved for a bigger/better one that could actually teach us something?
If you're not interested in the results from the current detectors, what is so interesting about the next? Bear in mind they will be much more expensive, they're also not funded and may take 20-30 years to be built. Also you can really only build the next generation if you keep the people currently employed. The way budgets work, it doesn't come out of the same pot.
The current generation detectors are not fixed in terms of sensitivity. There are plans in motion to double their sensitivity. They are already much more sensitive than when they started.

>>16726337 (OP)
Data is never useless, it can be archived and used to support future research
>but what about the running costs
what, the wage scientists and janitors get?

LigoN Deez nutz

>>16726337 (OP)
>What exactly is the point?
> it's not sensitive enough to do much other than confirm that fact.
The whole field of astronomy is like this, it has zero utility other than curiosity (and propaganda of course, bu thtats something else)

>>16726337 (OP)
n*g*er minded, consider suicide