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Science/Tech See other Science/Tech Articles Title: Scientists Just Made the Biggest Physics Breakthrough in 100 Years Scientists Just Made the Biggest Physics Breakthrough in 100 Years A new study confirms the existence of gravitational waves. New Study Says Anal Sex Is Linked to Incontinence Even if You Only Do it Once Watch 30-Foot Waves Black Out a Cruise Ship's Cabin Windows 6.6 Million People Have Watched This Video of a 3-Ingredient Cheesecake By William Herkewitz Feb 11, 2016 Scientists just announced the first ever detection of gravitational waves—ripples in space itself. Led by Caltech, MIT, and the LIGO Scientific Collaboration, the discovery takes place almost exactly 100 years after Einstein theorized their existence. The scientists discovered the ripples from an event "1.3 billion years ago," says David Reitze, the executive director of the LIGO laboratory in today's press conference, "of two black holes spiraling into one another and merging." It's a sight that is impossible to see clearly with light or any other electromagnetic radiation. Only gravitational waves could detect it. "Up until now we've been deaf to gravitational waves, that's just amazing to me." "It's the first time this type of [binary black hole] system has ever been seen, and it's proof that binary black holes exist," Reitze says. "Up until now we've been deaf to gravitational waves, that's just amazing to me." Today's discovery is "an unprecedented view into a regime of physics that was simply inaccessible to humanity thus far," says Stefan Ballmer—a physicist at Syracuse University and one of the researchers behind the gravitational-wave detection—who spoke with Popular Mechanics. "It's a completely unprecedented way to observe the universe in a way no living being has ever been able to. It allows us to get as close as we conceivably can to extreme objects like black holes and neuron stars, and other things that are simply inaccessible in another way. " What are gravitational waves? Just like an ocean wave is a slosh of water and a sound wave is a movement of air, gravitational waves are likewise the motion of a medium. But with gravitational waves, it's space itself that's moving. If you imagine the world around you covered with 3D grid lines, the warping and stretching of those physical coordinates would be a gravitational wave going by. The Last Pilots So what causes them? Well, Einstein's general theory of relativity explained that when virtually any matter accelerates and moves about—like a planet, or your car, or even a mote of dust—it warps the physical coordinates of space around it, sending out these waves at light speed. But because space is so extraordinarily stiff, it takes a huge mass moving at an astonishing speed to produce a wave big enough for us to conceivably measure. (Sorry, dust mote.) Now, gravitational waves have been indirectly detected before. In 1974, scientists found that a certain binary star system had to be producing gravitational waves—but only because the orbit of these stars decayed at the precise rate that energy had to be exiting in the form of gravitational waves. That's a bit like being told a never-before-heard sound was made somewhere, but not actually hearing it. Today's detected waves were caused by two black holes spiraling in toward one another, and eventually crashing in to one another. "Because we have two detectors, which is like having two ears, we can tell it came from the southern sky, in the rough direction of the Magellanic Cloud," said Gabriela González, a physicist behind the detection. Poster Comment: It all sounds Greek to me. I'm just in my own little orbit here. Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread
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