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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'>From:</span></b><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'> extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces@lists.extropy.org] <b>On Behalf Of </b>John Clark<br><b>…</b></span><o:p></o:p></p><div><div><div><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div><div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Arial",sans-serif'></span><span style='font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p></div></div><div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif'>>…Apparently they <o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif'>are. Unless they LIGO people were astronomically lucky they are far more frequent than anybody predicted. Most thought it would be decades before they heard anything that good, and some thought they never would… John K Clark</span><span style='font-family:"Arial",sans-serif'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'>I never participated in the debates a few years ago over whether LIGO would be worth building, but I was quietly cheering for the LIGOers. Being a space guy, I always like to see orbiting observatories, and I admit that ground-based stuff just isn’t sexy. But I also think it is worthwhile to always check theoretical predictions at every opportunity. Good thing we did this time, ja?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'>To find that chirp in such a short time fills me with hope that our notions on black hole formation are baloney. It is so exciting to learn that something we always took for granted is screwed. Progress!<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'>It makes me really focus on the question: if we turn on the LIGO in the fall and find one of these merger events every couple months, why would the BB have given us so many black holes in the 10 to 100 solar mass range? What fundamental black hole formation mechanism did we systematically overlook, and noooobody caught it?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'>spike<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p></div></div></div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div></div></div></body></html>