iPod iChing - the last parsec is the hardest

It is, amazingly, friday again. Aargh.

So, we turn to the mighty iPod, and we ponderously ask: oh, great and wise iPod, as you know, when two supermassive black holes of a mass interestingly large for the purposes of continued NASA funding seek to coalesce under the influence of gravitational radiation, they must first go from the marginally bound phase after galactic merger, to the relativistic tightly bound phase, if they are to coalesce within the lifetime of the universe, so we may observe. Are stellar dynamical processes adequate to complete the hardening to the point where gravitational radiation dominates, in the general case, on time scales of less than 10 billion years? Or do we have to rely on hydrodynamical, or other, processes?

Whooooooooooosh goes the randomizer. Whooooooooooosh.

• The Covering: Kátt er í Hverjum Bæ - Gáttaþefur


• The Crossing: Longing in Their Hearts - Bonnie Raitt


• The Crown: The Space Between - Roxy Music


• The Root: I Wish You Wouldn't Say That - Talking Heads


• The Past: Tom the Peeper - Act.1


• The Future: Non la lasciare - Pavarotii


• The Questioner: Autumn - Vivaldi


• The House: Lorelei - Pogues
  
• The Inside: Cindy of 1000 Lives - Billy Bragg


• The Outcome: Golden Touch - Razorlight

#11 is The Time Warp from the Rocky Horror Show (Instrumental version)! #12 is Rip Her to Shreds - Blondie.

Bloody hell, that is unambiguous.

There is no "last parsec" problem. The SMBHs coalesce, we will see them and it won't be subtle.
I infer this will happen later in my career then I'd appreciate, but Autumn beast Winter I guess.

The Covering, by the way, is "Cheer in every Farm/Town" by one of the Yule Lads.

As always, the Key as explained by Sean

LISA

gravitational radiation from SMBH coalescence

Thar she blows - listen for yourself...

The Last Parsec

The iPod is not kind to my colleagues:

Lorelei
By Philip Chevron (1989)
You told me tales of love and glory
Same old sad songs, same old story
The sirens sing no lullaby
And no-one knows but Lorelei

By castles out of fairytales
Timbers shivered where once there sailed
The lovesick men who caught her eye
And no-one knew but Lorelei

River, river have mercy
Take me down to the sea
For if I perish on these rocks
My love no more I'll see

I've thought of you in far-off places
I've puzzled over lipstick traces
So help me God, I will not cry
And then I think of Lorelei

I travel far and wander wide
No photograph of you beside me
Ol' man River's not so shy
And he remembers Lorelei

River, river have mercy
Take me down to the sea
For if I perish on these rocks
My love no more I'll see

If I should float upon this stream
And see you in my madman's dream
I'd sink into your troubled eyes
And none would know 'cept Lorelei

River, river have mercy
Take me down to the sea
For if I perish on these rocks
My love no more I'll see

But if my ship, which sails tomorrow
Should crash against these rocks,
My sorrows I will drown before I die
It's you I'll see, not Lorelei

River, river have mercy
Take me down to the sea
For if I perish on these rocks
My love no more I'll see