- The existence of gravitational waves was confirmed by scientists with Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO)
- The detection of gravitational waves confirms Albert Einstein’s prediction made a hundred years ago
- The scientific discovery not only advances our understanding of how the Universe works; it also opens up a whole new way of studying it
WASHINGTON, D.C. – After a hundred years of probing, a group of scientists have finally detected gravitational waves; proving once again Albert Einstein’s prediction correct.
According to an article by Fiona Macdonald of Science Alert, this breakthrough marks one of the biggest astrophysical discoveries of the past century. The scientific finding not only advances our understanding of how the Universe works, it also opens up a whole new way of studying it.
Albert Einstein first suggested the existence of gravitational waves a hundred years ago; however, directly detecting them required incredible technological prowess and a history of hunting.
Finally detecting the existence of gravitational waves is not only a historic feat but would also provide the final vindication for Einstein’s masterwork – the theory of general relativity.
Further, according to a story by Adrian Cho of Science, the discovery also marks an achievement for the thousand-strong physicists with the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO); a pair of gigantic instruments in Hanford, Washington, and Livingston, Louisiana.
According to Michael Geshko of the National Geographic, rumors of the detection of gravitational waves had circulated for months.
At long last, at a press conference in Washington, D.C., the LIGO team made the official announcement of their discovery. The group of scientists made public on Thursday that they have heard and recorded the sound of two black holes colliding a billion light-years away.
According to Science Alert, on September 14, 2015, the team detected a comparatively big change in their Livingston lab in Louisiana. They detected the same blip 7 milliseconds later with their lab in Hanford, Washington, 4,000 km away; telling that it had been caused by a gravitational wave passing through Earth.
“Gravitational waves are akin to sound waves that travelled through space at the speed of light. Up to now humanity has been deaf to the universe. Suddenly we know how to listen. The Universe has spoken and we have understood,” said gravitational researcher, David Blair, from the University of Western Australia.
According to Einstein’s theory as explained on Science Alert, the fabric of space-time can become curved by anything massive in the Universe. When cataclysmic events happen, such as black holes merging or stars exploding, these curves can ripple out elsewhere as gravitational waves, just like if someone had dropped a stone in a pond.
By the time those ripples get to us on Earth, they are really minute — around a billionth of the diameter of an atom — which is why scientists have so much difficulty for so many years to find them. But through the use of LIGO, scientists have been able to detect gravitational waves. The LIGO laboratory works by bouncing lasers back and forth in two 4-km-long pipes; allowing physicists to calculate incredibly small changes in spacetime.
To have a better understanding of gravitational wave, watch the YouTube clips of Science regarding the discovery, and Neil Degrasse Tyson’s explanation:
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