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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><div style='border:none;border-top:solid #E1E1E1 1.0pt;padding:3.0pt 0in 0in 0in'><p class=MsoNormal>> <b>On Behalf Of </b>John Clark via extropy-chat<br><b>Subject:</b> [ExI] LIGO detects the largest black hole merger yet<o:p></o:p></p></div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:13.5pt'>>…In today's issue of Physical Review Letters the two Lego detectors in the US and the Virgo detector in Italy announced they had detected on May 21 2019 the gravitational waves from the merger of two Black Holes of 65 and 85 Solar masses which produced a Black Hole of 142 solar masses with 8 solar masses of matter being converted into the energy of gravitational waves… <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal>>…<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:13.5pt'>…But science thrives on mystery.</span><o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Arial",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif'><a href="https://journals.aps.org/prl/pdf/10.1103/PhysRevLett.125.101102">A Binary Black Hole Merger with a Total Mass of 150 Suns</a></span><span style='font-family:"Arial",sans-serif'><o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Arial",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif'>John K Clark<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:14.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:14.0pt'>John these LIGO results have caused the biggest and most jarring impact on my thinking than any scientific instrument in my lifetime, since I began being interested in astronomy in about second grade. Even Hubble, while that was mind-blowing cool, didn’t really cause me to seriously rethink my own sanity.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:14.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:14.0pt'>I don’t see how the hell events of this magnitude could still be happening at this point in history. Clearly they are, so I suspect the anomaly is somewhere between my ears. Nature does what she does, with no concern about what she is doing to my head.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:14.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:14.0pt'>Now I have had two big jolts right together, way down here at this end of life: the LIGO results starting about 4 years ago, and the second one realizing I wasn’t the only person who recognized the Hawking’s explanation for Hawking radiation couldn’t be right. I have known there is something seriously wrong with that notion he offered in Brief History of Time, but had no idea what could be the real mechanism.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:14.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:14.0pt'>Two major surprises, way down here. What a marvelous time to be alive. John you and I are two lucky guys to have lived to see this. To be alive now, to have enough brains left to marvel at it, I am filled with deep gratitude for that.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:14.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:14.0pt'>spike<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:14.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div></div></div></body></html>