What's the actual mechanism that slows down the gravitational waves though? I think I can understand how light waves slow down in a gravitational field, since they get bent on their path (correct me if that's the wrong interpretation), but how does that work with gravitational waves?
I'm just...
Is it noticeable at all when you're dealing with very large masses?
Like, let's say I had a 'transmitter' on one side of VY Canis Majoris moving around an object with great mass and generating gravitational waves. On the other side, I had a 'receiver' that filters out all of the noise and...
I'm not sure exactly how to phrase this question, but I was thinking earlier about electromagnetic waves being absorbed by atoms and 'slowing down' the speed of light.
Do gravitational waves propagate slower when blocked by, say, a really massive object? In the same way that light slows down...
So, I think I see how some of their mass becomes the energy binding the nucleus together, but why doesn't that energy stay as mass?
Like, if the mass of a neutron comes from the binding energy of the quarks, then why doesn't more mass come from the binding energy of a nucleus? What's the...
I'm a high school student reading through a book on the discovery of the Higgs boson, and, among several other things, there's one part that I don't understand completely.
I understand that the Higgs field is what gives mass to lots of particles that would otherwise be the same without the...