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Sound is just a kinetic wave propagating through a medium, right? In that case, if we had the ability to make gravitational waves exactly as we want them, could we play music to an observer some distance away with them?

I'm not talking about having the observer measure the frequency of these waves and using a speaker to convert this data into sound. I'm referring to placing a microphone and having it actually pick up music.

For this thought experiment there's probably going to be at least two assumptions:

  1. The microphone won't break from the gravitational waves (which I'm assuming that it probably would)
  2. The space between the gravitational wave projector and the microphone is filled with air (which I'm guessing would be necessary, at the very least having air around the microphone)

Thank you for the help regarding this dumb, fun and likely impractical thought experiment.

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    $\begingroup$ Can you make a gravitational radio? Sure... if you have waaaaay too many trillions of dollars to burn on something that can be built for a few bucks with electromagnetic waves. Why not. $\endgroup$
    – CuriousOne
    Mar 27, 2016 at 9:26

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The first attempt to detect gravity waves was by Weber, who attempted to measure them by looking at the disturbances generated in massive aluminium cylinders, apparently designed to vibrate with a frequency of $1660 Hz$ when disturbed by the gravity waves. What is of note though, is the sensors had to be capable of detecting a change in the cylinders' lengths by about $10^{−16}$ $m$ so any Musica universalis wouldn't be very loud.

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