The world of science is abuzz with rumors about the upcoming announcement tonight, Thursday February 11, 2016, of the LIGO team (Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory - the leading ground-based observatory for detecting gravitational waves
Update indeed this was the announcement see news: "The discovery of gravitational waves opens a new window to the universe"
The world of science is abuzz with rumors about the upcoming announcement tonight, Thursday February 11, 2016, by the LIGO team (Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory - the leading ground-based observatory for detecting gravitational waves. The announcement should be made in several places around the world at the same time: in Washington, in Italy in the United Kingdom and at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Almost everyone believes that the team will announce that they found gravitational waves and proved and confirmed their existence. If indeed so, there is no doubt that the discovery will lead to a Nobel Prize.
These mysterious ripples in space and time were predicted by Einstein in the theory of relativityand the general Gravitational waves are created in the most violent events in the universe such as supernovae, neutron star collisions and black hole mergers. These are fluctuations in the texture of the universe - ripples in space-time - that move at the speed of light. The fabric of space-time curves around a massive factor, and this curve creates a ripple that crosses space in other places as well, just like seismic oscillations progressing through the Earth's crust.
By the time the gravitational waves reach the Earth, they should already be extremely tiny - on the order of a billionth of an atom. And so they had to find particularly clever ways to detect these elusive ripples. It is assumed that the researchers will announce that they have detected gravitational waves originating from the merger of two enormous black holes.
The ability to detect gravitational waves can open a new window for observing the universe, as if we were blind until now and now we can see it in a completely new way. Scientists will be able to study the early universe, black holes, neutron stars and much more by tracking gravitational waves, surely this ability will lead to surprising findings.
The discovery will confirm Einstein's last great prediction: this year marks 100 years since the publication of Einstein's theory of general relativity, which predicted the existence of gravitational waves.
More of the topic in Hayadan:
- Has there been evidence of the existence of gravitational waves?
- Inflation, gravitational waves and the cosmic background radiation
- An attentive ear to the echoes of the Big Bang
15 תגובות
Indeed a new window. To date, the universe has been explored by other (electromagnetic) waves. Now events unknown until now will be revealed. They will investigate the gravitational "absorption and emission lines". The electrostatic constant is 9^10•9 but the gravitational constant is 11^6.67/10… a ratio of 20^10… which would require extremely powerful instrumentation and capture only the most violent events in the universe. very interesting
And an interesting question for thought -
It is claimed here, according to what I understand, that the proof that the origin of the detected pulses is in outer space is that they were detected by two different detectors that are about 3,000 kilometers apart. But what about the possibility that the noise was actually created on Earth at a point exactly halfway between the two detectors? Maybe some big leviathan that jumped out of the water and the noise it made is what the detectors discovered? Or maybe a slight earthquake at that point?
How is the current discovery different from the erroneous discovery of gravitational waves that was reported in all the headlines just a few months ago and in the end it turned out to be a mistake?
Another question, in the same publication from a few months ago they said that this is strong proof of the big bang theory, weren't the detectors that we are talking about now also supposed to detect these gravitational waves that were created in the bang?
diameter
Maybe you will learn Hebrew by writing in the past and not in the present. Write with optical waves and not with optical waves.
elbentzo
I have a question to you. I'm not familiar with the subject, so I'm asking carefully. Can there be interference between gravitational waves here too and what are the implications since we are dealing with astronomical distances and is there a mathematical expression for this? Are there any sites that discuss this?
There was room to explain that we probably aimed our observations at a galaxy that is a billion light years away from us and we are therefore observing what happened a billion years ago. At the same time, a billion years have passed and we are now measuring the gravitational wave that reached us. The technology had to be advanced to witness 2 black holes merging - black. And at the same time measure over the course of months the ball that was thrown there then and reached us in the same period of time - let's say two years that we see it happen.
In my opinion, there is proof of programming for a new and fascinating technology and it is hard to imagine at the moment what hidden corners of reality could be discovered through it. Beyond that, the phenomena predicted by the theory of general relativity are so exotic that it seems that we need to verify each one of them separately before we believe "with all our heart" that it actually occurs in reality and not some artifact of theory.
Asaf,
Although there is no discovery of new knowledge here, it actually has important consequences for science. For example, if until today they were not convinced that gravitational waves exist, there would be no significant motivation to invest money in technology based on them. All the budgets went to interferometers and dedicated devices that will try to locate the phenomenon. Now that it has been verified, it is very likely that in the coming years we will see the construction of telescopes and other technologies based on gravitational waves, which will allow us to see new things in the universe or to see old things from new angles.
Now we can already say that the proof is unequivocal
Therefore, to your question, we will see more and more resources directed to research and attempts to turn this amazing discovery into a working tool in the hands of humanity.
Eitan, I meant that I don't think the proof advances scientific knowledge but only the validity of the assumption. If before this 40% of scientists believed in gravitational waves now 90% will believe it. If there were other theories based on gravitational waves, they were already presented and did not wait for proof, therefore from a scientific point of view there was no progress here, but only the establishment of the existing science.
We have already heard about these detectors that are very sensitive to the point that during an American Super Bowl game, at halftime when everyone is running to the bathroom and flushing, then there are reactions in these optic waves.
exciting.
The proof is the advancement of science. It's science
Probably what you wanted to ask is what do you get out of it.
I didn't understand how the proof could advance science, except for the fact that the theory was proven?