No problem redewenur.
By examining the gravitational radiation emitted by the system (stellar mass black hole orbiting a supermassive black hole) it might be possible to directly measure the geometry of the surrounding spacetime. It is thought that most (useful) black holes are best described by the Kerr metric - which describes the geometry of spacetime around a massive rotating object. A direct measurement of the spacetime around a supermassive black hole would allow comparison to the Kerr metric i.e. do we understand black holes at all theoretically?
If the spacetime is approximately described by the Kerr metric - good result the theory guys got it right (Einstein et al...)
If not, something might be wrong with the GR - perhaps more interesting...
I've been to a few seminars on LISA, and this is all infinitely harder than i make it sound. But the idea is nice.
Durante.
Last edited by Durante; 04/18/07 11:24 PM.
