Posted on 10/03/2017 4:03:34 PM PDT by Olog-hai
For decades astronomers tried to prove Albert Einstein right by doing what Einstein thought was impossible: detecting the faint ripples in the universe called gravitational waves. They failed repeatedly until two years ago when they finally spotted one. Then another. And another. And another.
Three American scientists — including one who initially flunked out of MIT — won the Nobel Prize in physics Tuesday that launched a whole new way to observe the cosmos. Sweden’s Royal Academy of Sciences cited the combination of highly advanced theory and ingenious equipment design in awarding Rainer Weiss of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Barry Barish and Kip Thorne of the California Institute of Technology.
“It’s a win for the human race as a whole. These gravitational waves will be powerful ways for the human race to explore the universe,” Thorne told The Associated Press in a phone interview. […]
The waves are like “a storm in the fabric of space-time that is produced when two black holes collide,” Thorne said. The first detection came from a crash 1.3 billion light-years away. A light-year is about 5.88 trillion miles.
The prize is “a win for Einstein, and a very big one,” Barish told the AP. …
(Excerpt) Read more at hosted.ap.org ...
Observational evidence continues to confirm what Einstein theorized between 1905-1917.
Still not one decent theory how gravity really works, where it comes from, or what it actually is.
Eisteins theories can be proved and don’t have to rely on scientific consensus or on my believing in science or on persecuting deniers. That’s because they are real science.
Ripples never come back.
Too bad there wasn’t a way to harness that energy. What is the wavelength? I suspect that anything built by humans would be too small in comparison to the waves to not be stretched and compressed by the waves themselves.
Yep. Another so called theory that godless scientists are trying to ram down our throats!
General Relativity isn’t a decent theory?
Fred Sanford made the first discovery of ripple(s) way back in the 70’s...
Whoops! I am soooo slow typing with these 84-year-old fingers.
Sadly there are no nipples in my universe...
Very exciting, that’s for sure. Anytime you can put a new eye on the universe, you’re bound to learn things you didn’t know before.
In a sense, these gravitational wave “telescopes” are going to allow us to “see” inside black holes (because gravity is the only thing that can escape from a black hole). Well, that’s one explanation I saw, anyway... We’re seeing ripples generated by what is going on inside colliding black holes. And that’s going to tell us things about their interiors at the moment they merge that otherwise we would have no hope of detecting without this technology.
Who knows what we’ll find? I hope it’s something totally mind blowing!
They do bounce or reflect however.
It is an interesting notion. Do gravitational waves bounce?
Light waves bounce. Neutrons, gamma rays, and radio waves bounce.
Why not gravitational waves.
And if you got a return (like from a radar ping) what would the return from a gravitational wave tell you about the object that it struck?
nipple is my favorite fruit
If you drink enough Ripple it will certainly come back up.
Welcome to the club...
Don’t fall off the flat earth!
Ernest and Julio Gallo are honorary physicists.
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