Gravitational Waves: Einstein’s theory proved right after 100 years?

Scientists at Sheffield University have helped to make one of the biggest space discoveries of all time which looks set to herald a new type of astronomy and unlock wonders of the universe.

“As the black holes spiral closer and closer in together, the frequency of the gravitational waves increases”, the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) said. “We did it!” declared David Reitze, the executive director of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO), drawing applause from a packed audience at the National Press Club that included numerous luminaries of the physics world”.

“This is something completely different, these are gravitational waves that by the time they get to Earth, they’re very hard to pick up”.

LIGO’s scientists traced the signals they saw to the merger of a black hole 29 times as massive as the sun with another black hole 36 times as massive as the sun.

“Now that we know there are binary black holes out there we will begin listening to the universe”.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, expressed joy over the historic detection of gravitational waves and lauded the role of Indian scientists in the project. Louisiana State University physicist Gabriela Gonzale hailed the discovery during the conference as opening a new era in astronomy. These are, in effect, ripples which travel through time whilst stretching and compressing space. In addition to confirming the existence of gravitational waves and further vindicating Einstein’s theory of general relativity, this experiment also provided us with the strongest evidence yet for the existence of black holes, which have only been observed indirectly until this point.

Washington D.C, Feb 12 (ANI): A team of researchers has detected gravitational waves, 100 years after Einstein predicted so. To this end, Hughes has modeled the “sounds” of a host of astrophysical events, including colliding black holes.

“We could point the best telescopes, sensitive to more or less any electromagnetic wavelength of light, at this system and probably see nothing”, said Nergis Mavalvala, a professor of astrophysics at MIT. Our theoretical predictions lie right on top of the experimentalist’s measurements – an exciting confirmation of general relativity.

Deirdre Shoemaker, a Georgia Tech physicist who works on LIGO, compared the gravitational waves to a “chirp” lasting one-fifth of a second.