Strange

There is no reason to think that dark matter is the medium for gravitational waves. The theory of gravitational waves was developed before we knew anything about dark matter. Therefore: It does not require dark matter. It is not changed by our knowledge of dark matter. Dark matter is totally irrelevant to the propagation of gravitational waves You have just randomly picked on dark matter as a medium. You could have chosen hydrogen. Or neutrinos. Or unicorns. They are present throughout space (OK, not the unicorns) and also have nothing to do with the propagation of gravitational waves. You are going around this completely backwards. You have decided on a conclusion and are now randomly choosing things that could be evidence. It is like a police officer saying, "Jack 'Chalky' White committed the crime!" "How do you know that, Guv?" "Because it is Tuesday and Justin Bieber's favourite colour is orange" "But that isn't evidence for the crime!" "OK. Well, then it's because of dark matter. See, it's obvious: dark matter - Chalky White. Guilty as heck." "But, Guv ..." Because there is no evidence for such a thing and no theory requires it. Why is there such a strong desire for people not to believe in Father Christmas?

That is because the medium you insist on can't be seen, can't be proved, can't get a sample of, can't be tested etc. All attempts to detect any such medium have been negative. Also, our current best theory does not require any such medium.

And, just to make this absolutely clear to Michel, this disagreement is not resolved by arbitrarily choosing one of these views as "best". Which is what he is doing. It is resolved by looking at the "big picture" - the 3D object considered from all directions simultaneously. That is what GR does: it says that the "proper" measurements (those made in the object's own rest frame) are just as much an "illusion" or distortion as any other. The only "true" view is the invariant one that considers relationships between events in space-time

That is not evidence or even a fact. It is your (incorrect) assumption/guess.

I said proof, not example. Please show how you calculate the run time (O(n)) in terms of the problem size.

As there is no evidence for such a medium, it is premature to be thinking about its origin.

I would like to see the proof of that.

I don't know how this title gets awarded (and how much money goes with it). I assume there is some sort of secret conclave where decisions are made. Or something. Anyway, I would like to nominate Markus Hanke for this title. This is for both his in-depth knowledge of GR (and, in future, QM) and also his ability to explain complex ideas very clearly.

I think these are both fairly pointless suggestions. For one thing, this information is (usually) irrelevant. For example, Markus Hanke is one of the most knowledgable people about GR but is entirely self taught, with no formal qualifications. On the other hand, there are often people who have (or claim to have) qualifications but talk nonsense. Also, there is a danger of "appeal to authority" - i.e. giving more weight to the opinions of people who happen to have qualifications. Similarly, both young and old are capable of being wise or talking nonsense. The only time I think it is useful to know if someone is very young (say, early teens or younger) is because that may explain their naive enthusiasm for a silly idea. I would take a different approach trying to explain things to someone very young, than I would to someone who is older. Anyway, people might just lie about their qualifications or age. How is anyone going to know? There is already the "Resident Expert" tag that is applied to some members. They generally seem to know what they are talking about (in their area of expertise). I don't know how this gets given; presumably it is the result of many helpful and accurate posts.

How can you know what reality is other than what you measure? Are you planning to hijack every thread with your inability to understand?

In terms of evolution, humans are meant to be healthy so they can reproduce. But there are many very serious diseases that have evolved (sickle cell disease, for example). Things are not that simple.

Just in case any readers think that Professional Trollman has some sort of point, the question is not haw an interferometer works. That is, of course, very well understood. The question is about the subtlety of how LIGO, specifically, works. This is acknowledged in both sources linked in post 3. For example: I doubt that Professor Troll is too stupid to understand this. But presumably he has some sort of chip on his shoulder that make him feel the need to try and put others down. Which, as always with trolls, just makes him look rather pathetic.

There is another great episode where Father Ted draws a circle to explain the idea of "inside your head" (i.e. things you imagined) and "outside" (the real world). And now back to your scheduled argument discussion.

You want to patent Mother Teresa?

Good question! You should compare the length a ruler with the rate at which the clock ticks - i.e. the length of the units they measure. In that case you will find them both consistent when they return from their journey. The equivalent of the elapsed time measured by the clock is the total distance travelled by the ruler.

Some insane people posted some insane nonsense.

Why would it be one or the other?

The only question is: what do you mean by "truly"? That is the only point of contention here, the meanings of the words you use.

Swansont might have something to say about that. I think we are getting to the point where people in his line of work can't ignore those differences!

This is interesting, but I particularly like the "infographic" they used. You know, just in case you are not sure what 1.5m is... http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-36912700

You would keep the inputs and outputs around the edge so it remains 2D. Indeed. Depending on the level at which you simulate, it may be hundreds to millions of times slower. This is quite a challenge in microprocessor design. We sometimes use large numbers of computers networked together to very slowly simulate a few milliseconds of execution.

Bazinga. I hope this isn't against the rules, but I am going to quote a post from another forum because I think it gets to a key point: http://cosmoquest.org/forum/showthread.php?161009-Is-Lorentz-Contraction-Real&p=2364615#post2364615

An interesting idea. If you can design a Turing (compatible) computing machine based on that then, yes you could build a brain! You could use some of the circles for storage and some for communicating data from one place to another. You would have to work out a way of making basic logic gates or other decision functions. But it might be possible.

So you just have a number of independent current loops. What use is that?

Citation needed. I think this would have made headlines, if true. What you, or anyone else believes is hardly relevant. Do you have observational data that is consistent with this claim? And what about other properties such as charge and spin? p.s. Do you see the same communication problem again? You just list some numbers and expect people to somehow guess(?) that you think some of them might be neutrinos.