China to study gravitational waves in domestic research project

Slightly under a 100 years after Albert Einstein propounded his famous General Theory of Relativity (GTR), evidence supporting a rather elusive implication of the theory was found. The US-based Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) has published data on the recording of the first observed gravitational wave.

So, what exactly are gravitational waves?

The free public lecture is scheduled for 3 p.m.in Stevenson 4327 and is preceded by a reception at 2:30 p.m.in Stevenson 6333.

Gravitational waves are one of the many predictions of how the Universe behaves according to Einstein’s theory of general relativity.

“They’re really hard to detect, so for our instruments to be able to see them, it has to be some hugely catastrophic event like a huge star exploding or in this case two black holes merging”, Kremer explained. Like most things on this side of physics, the waves are considered negligibly small and thus almost impossible to detect…. until today. When mass is accelerated, and therefore the distortion of space changes, gravitational waves are predicted to be produced.

Explainer: What are gravitational waves?

Chen Yanbei, scientist with LIGO, said Tianqin will study the gravitational waves in the space, which is different from research made by the U.S. ground-based observatory. This was the moment science has been waiting for: a sign that space-time exists as Einstein predicted.

About 1.2 billion years ago in a distant galaxy, two black holes ferociously circled each other, the intense gravity pulling them toward each other with such intensity that they reached half the speed of light. Scientists predict that the discovery could open a new window to unravel hidden secrets of the universe. “We may even see relics of the very early Universe during the Big Bang at some of the most extreme energies possible”. When two massive space objects, like black holes, swirls around each other, said Daniel Batcheldor of the Physics and Space Sciences at Florida Institute of Technology.

Nope. “I don’t think this will bring us any closer to time travel”, Kip Thorne, co-founder of LIGO said Wednesday. “It may be a tool for us to look at the universe in a way that we don’t have the capabilities yet”, Fischler said.

Kremer says the waves don’t happen all the time, there has to be an event like a pebble thrown into a pond, but a whole lot bigger than that.