So, what happens when 21 years from now plus or minus, the wave front passes over us and we find ourselves all over the place, like on Mary’s wall at Fredericksburg, in a B-17 over Germany or marching across Britain in a Roman Legion???
If we are over Germany, Homer Simpson can direct us to the NYT edition. Anything earlier, Sunken Civ will have to handle.
I’m aiming for 1974 so I can put everything I have into Walmart stock.
Interesting you should ask that. I was thinking along similar lines; namely, could gravitational waves spreading out in spacetime be so powerful that they would kill you if you were close enough to the source of the commotion? Never mind the EM radiation, etc. We’re just talking about the gravity waves alone here.
I’m guessing yes, inasmuch as tidal forces - which are due to gravity - near a black hole can rip you apart. But to my pea-sized brain, time seems like it might complicate the picture a little bit and give us an “out.”
Likewise, how large would merging supermassive black holes have to be [in order for the gravity waves generated by their merging] to kill you clear across the universe? I’m guessing dozens, maybe hundreds (though that much mass probably doesn’t exist in the universe, observable or not), of orders of magnitude larger than these two supermassive black holes.
Just be sure to always carry your camera phone, get some footage of the legion.