Science And Stuff

Gravitational Waves will always be the best discovery of this year #science #gravity #physics #astrophysics #albertenstein

So why are gravitational waves a thing suddenly and what is it? Over the web in the past few months, you may have seen numerous articles about this new “wave of gravity’. Gravitational waves has been recently discovered. People in the science community are tremendously excited since they found evidence to this rather old phenomena. After all, it’s been a century since Albert Einstein predicted it in his own experiment, and he too once concluded that gravitational waves does not exist. But now that we have the proper technology to detect gravitational waves, we are able to look into this more and seek the practical applications we can use with this new knowledge. Clearly, gravitational waves are widely held today due to its recent discovery, as well as how Einstein’s prediction was correct and its uses and applications. Initially, gravitational waves are not a new concept. Scientists have already defined what it is before they actually got to see one. According to physics.org, a gravitational wave is a concept predicted by Einstein’s theory of general relativity. General relativity states that mass distorts both space and time in the same way a heavy bowling ball will distort a trampoline. This is significant because it shows that gravitational waves are a part of general relativity. In any object accelerates, however, it creates ripples in space time. This ripples are known as gravitational waves, which is incredibly hard to detect just from any object. The collision of black holes on the other hand has created a strong enough ripple the new Advanced LIGO detectors to detect. Consequently, gravitational waves are part general relativity and isn’t a new concept. As stated earlier, the collision of two black created a strong enough ripple for us to detect. It was detected by LIGO, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory. Supported by the National Science Foundation, one of its main missions was to detect and conduct research on gravitational waves. According to their own website, they actually started detecting the wave at September 2015. The end of the detection, which was January 2016, was most likely when it got viral. Their actual data, in my opinion, is more interesting. LIGO stated in their abstract form, ‘Observation of Gravitational Waves from a Binary Black Hole Merger’, “the signal sweeps upwards in frequency from 35 to 250 Hz with a peak gravitational-wave strain of 1.0 × 10-21. It matches the waveform predicted by general relativity for the inspiral and merger of a pair of black holes and the ringdown of the resulting single black hole.” This citation is basically proving that they have found gravitational waves with the same wavelength of the one predicted in general relativity. Obviously, we have detected actual gravitational waves. The finding of actual gravitational waves are very valuable in the world of science. However, it doesn’t seem like it the most. People may think, “So what if we found gravitational waves?” The discovery of gravitational waves can prove other facts or theories, change the way how we think about physics and astronomy, as well as potentially rewriting textbooks, and give birth to the new applications and uses of it. For instance, the existence of gravitational waves gives strong direct evidence that black holes exist. There can be many more clarifications and changes alike due to this finding. As for the applications on gravitational waves however, it can take a while to find some. Nevertheless, according to Ian O'Neill from Discovery news, “All scientific discoveries are profound and many eventually have everyday applications that we take for granted. For now, the practical applications of gravitational waves may seem restricted to astrophysics and cosmology — we now have a window into a “dark universe” where no electromagnetic radiation is required. There is little doubt in my mind that scientists and engineers will find other uses for these spacetime ripples besides the awesome application of probing spacetime. That said, to detect these waves in the first place huge advances in optical engineering had to be performed by LIGO that will inevitably spawn new technologies.” Eventually, like numerous scientific discoveries before, there will be good purposes for it. Some even speculate that we will be able to time travel! As previously stated, the gravitational wave can be very imperative in science. For all we know, the first application of gravitational waves can change the world we live in. Even if Einstein never predicted it or never been a physicist all together, science continues to change our world around us as it opens up the pathway to the next new discovery. Gravitational waves are just a very, very small part of science, yet it is very, very, significant.