Scientists said on Thursday they have detected the existence of gravitational waves, which were predicted by Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity 100 years ago.
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“It’s inaugurating an entirely new branch of astronomy”.
It will be like going from silent movies to talkies, they said.
Congratulating the Indian scientists who formed a part of the worldwide team, Naralikar said detection of the gravitational waves is a “remarkable discovery which will be remembered for long”. “The skies will never be the same”. All of this would not have been possible without public funding and oversight from the U.S. National Science Foundation, the only federal funding agency devoted primarily to basic research.
As the gravitational waves warped space-time within LIGO’s gargantuan, twin detectors, its exquisitely sensitive instruments registered vibrations on the order of thousands of the diametre of a proton, the scientists said.
At the news conference, they played an audio recording of this: a low rumbling pierced by chirps.
Authors Gregory Harry, American University, Gabriela Gonzalez, Louisiana State University, and Guido Mueller, University of Florida, are physicists and members of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration.
Scientists may be poised to make a major announcement that will open a new window on the universe. Some said this is bigger.
Some scientists likened the breakthrough to the moment Galileo took up a telescope to look at the planets.
The crash detected by LIGO involved two incredibly massive bodies and a tremendous outpouring of energy, something equivalent to an object three times more massive than the sun being converted into gravitational waves.
There’s no way of knowing if the discovery will have practical impacts, but the technology developed to detect them will, Cornish said.
Einstein said space-time could be compared to a net, bowing under the weight of an object.
An abstract from the paper reads: “On September 14, 2015 at 09:50:45 UTC the two detectors of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory simultaneously observed a transient gravitational-wave signal”.
Over the last 25 years, Indian scientific community also made significant contribution to gravitational wave physics.
He writes, “The distance to the event, the scientists are pretty confident about; the location, less so”.
The achievement “is monumental”, says Lawrence Krauss, a theoretical physicist and cosmologist at Arizona State University in Tempe. “This discovery is the first detection of a black hole binary system and the first observation of black holes merging”, Prof.
“It’s great to finally be able to tell everybody”, said Cornish, 47, speaking in his native Australian accent, standing in line at The Daily coffee shop.
“The Ligo is only at the start of the current operations phase and has a lot of observing time to go”. The project that eventually led to a positive signal cost $1.1 billion over a period of 40 years.
LIGO technically wasn’t even operating in full science mode; it was still in the testing phase when the signal came through, Reitze said.
“It’s inspiring. It is like being able to see the world with a brand new set of eyes”, Timbie said. The first direct detection of Einstein’s waves was announced this week to much fanfare and celebration. The theory was unveiled around 100 years ago.
What can gravitational waves be used for?
Each LIGO has two giant perpendicular arms more than 2 miles long.
As the name suggests, LIGO is an in interferometer which works by splitting a laser beam into two.
Normally, the two beams are aligned so that they balance each other out and there’s nothing to hear.
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LIGO was originally proposed as a means of detecting these gravitational waves in the 1980s by Rainer Weiss, professor of physics, emeritus, from MIT; Kip Thorne, Caltech’s Richard P. Feynman Professor of Theoretical Physics, emeritus; and Ronald Drever, professor of physics, emeritus, also from Caltech. Two black holes – both larger than our sun – sent ripples past the Earth in a signal that serves as a key to help unlock the mystery of the universe.
