RE: Brace yourselves for gravitational waves
February 12, 2016 at 11:12 am
(This post was last modified: February 12, 2016 at 11:16 am by Jackalope.)
(February 12, 2016 at 9:05 am)Excited Penguin Wrote: Brian, I think all you have to understand is how the interference pattern works, which is what I want to understand as well. This basic experiment with the laser beam I never understood even in highschool, not that I was trying, physics didn't interest me that much back then.
Penguin - the idea here is that you have two signals (lasers) which, due to alignment, are 180 degrees out of phase with one another. When you combine the two signals, they cancel each other out. If you slightly modify the distance the beams have to travel, the signals are no longer out of phase and therefore not completely canceling out, making the perturbation apparent.
ETA: I see that Alex and TRJF have provided explanations already. Another doesn't hurt.
