Chris: The modeling would be fun, but utter scientific garbage (as most models are).

I saw Kip Thorne in one of those Nobel prize interviews saying that he only casually looked at the detection illustrated on his screen as it popped up. Because the Thing was under maintenance then, and he assumed that it was a test signal, because it was so spot on and clear. Until a colleague rushed into his room and said that something wonderful has happened! And Kip Thorne has been working on this since the 1960s. “- Was that it?” He earlier gave name to the Thorne–Zytkow star, a neutron star that orbits inside of a red giant. A prediction then confirmed. And which proves that aliens do have strange 1950s scifi Hollywood names.

When the on-button is pressed, I think LIGO detects about 50 gravitational waves a year. Although they often release them by the batch as there’s some math to it in the overwhelming noise and scientists, unlike politicians, don’t want to make fools out of themselves when they open their mouths. If they don’t come from merging black holes, it will be the more exciting! Cosmic string fusion, eh?

Wild speculation time – I wonder if “biological” modeling could be used to predict the occurrence of these based on estimated material available to create such black holes OR estimate the material based on the black hole birth rate. (x(n+1) = Rx(n)(1-x(n0))

Wild speculation I know

Edward: Actually, astronomers are pretty sure that black holes form approximately one per day, across the entire universe. That’s the rate of gamma ray bursts that has been tracked now for decades, and each burst is thought to be the signal of a black hole birth

I heard decades ago about the ridiculous sensitivity that LIGO needs, and thought for myself that “This will never happen.” And ignored it. Then it happened! Lesson learned: When 1,000 published physicists work on the same project, do not assume that it won’t work! They probably don’t waste their time, other than probabilistically (an explanation of my own non-doing much that doesn’t work well with my slave owning girl friend, though, at least probably not.)

I like that quick paper that appeared as soon as the first gravity wave was detected. Predicting, using the sample of 1, that between 2 and 200 gravity waves will be detected by LIGO per year. And with about 50 delivered, that was a bloody good spot on forecast! My boss wouldn’t have appreciated such a forecast much, but it was evidently rigorous.