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This article describes the use of interference patterns from laser light sources to measure the effects of gravity waves. This might lead one to conjecture whether there is an interference pattern that gravity waves by themselves might produce. A gravitational interference effect would correspond to gravitational “fringes” with more or less gravity and, therefore, areas with more or less mass than the average mass density for a given space. The effect would be extremely small and ride on top of the normal gravitation effect, but over the course of millions or perhaps billions of years, the small interference effects would accumulate and might be proof of the existence of gravity waves. Quite a long while ago, Science News had an article (SN: 8/5/89, p. 87) about the ring-arcs of Neptune that described an accumulation of zones of more or less mass than the average mass density of the overall ring. Perhaps this is an observation of a gravity-wave interference effect.

Richard Hanig
Silver Spring, Md.