Scientists confirmed Albert Einstein’s theory, after 100 years
Gravitational waves prove that Einstein was right.
This past week, Executives of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) announced that a team of scientists had detected gravitational waves, after intensive research that lasted decades. However, the famous physicist Albert Einstein was the first to predict their existence and began the entire controversy.
For over a century, physicists have been searching for these gravitational waves, which are essentially ripples in the fabric of space-time. Therefore, this major breakthrough of finding these waves helped reached the final verdict that these waves do in fact exist.
But what exactly are gravitational waves? And why are they so important to the finding?
Before answering these questions, we must first clarify that gravitational waves were first mentioned in the general theory of relativity by Albert Einstein 100 years ago.
"The general theory of relativity is the geometric theory of gravitation. In 1915, Albert Einstein had a new idea of what is gravitation. Einstein proposed in his theory that gravity occurs when the space itself is curved or deformed around the mass, such as a star or a planet. Thus the star or planet would cause a type of dive (slit) in the space, so that any object that is close enough also tends to fall into the dive. Imagine space as a large, stretched fabric.” Undoubtedly, Einstein’s theory is completely different from Newton's gravitational theory. This phenomenon is treated as the result from the curvature of space-time. The more dough that is contained within a given volume of space, the greater the curvature of space-time. When objects with mass move in space-time, the curvature changes to reflect the changing locations of these objects. In certain circumstances, objects that accelerate generate changes in this curvature, and propagate outward at the speed of light in a wave shape. This phenomena was spread last week, and contributed to the discovery of gravitational waves.
When gravitational waves pass, a distant observer finds space-time distorted. The free distances of the objects increase and decrease rhythmically as the wave passes at a frequency corresponding to the wavelength. This happens even though such free items are not subject to an imbalance of strength.
Rainer Weisss, co-founder of LIGO and professor emeritus of physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said "Einstein's equations worked very well, in ways he never could have imagined, and that the discovery may be the largest in the modern physics.”
The waves were detected by LIGO, and Rainer described them as tiny bump signals. A "chirp" was detected at intervals of seven milliseconds apart in the laboratory of Washington.
"Gravitational waves detected are in perfect agreement with the theory of relativity Einstein” said Kip Thorne, co-founder of LIGO.
LIGO could make this discovery using two L-shaped lasers that are about 2 miles long, with two mirrors and a detector. The laser light rays bounced from the mirror to the detector. Subsequently, when gravitational waves step or get in the way, lasers are stretched slightly and beat the slightly different detector.
Gravitational waves are ripples in the universe caused by some of the most energetic cosmic events of exploding stars mergering into supermassive black holes.
According to Einstein’s theory of relativity, when a pair of black holes orbit around one another, they begin to slowly lose energy, and slowly slide closer. In the last minutes of the merger, there is considerable acceleration until finally, they are moving at half the speed of light, hitting each other and forming one larger black hole. Consequently, a tremendous explosion of energy is released, and propagates through space in the form of gravitational waves.
To comprehend the magnitude of the two black holes, the black holes were 29 and 36 times greater than the Sun's mass. During the peak of this cosmic collision, LIGO researchers estimate that their power was 50 times greater than that of the entire visible universe.
"The description of this observation is well described in Einstein's theory of general relativity, formulated 100 years ago and comprises the first test of the theory of strong gravity," said Rainer Weiss, who first proposed this as a means to LIGO detection of gravitational waves in 1980. "It would have been wonderful to see the face of Einstein, and what we’ll be able to tell him."
The discovery of gravitational waves confirms an important aspect of the theory of relativity, but it also does much more than that. This major breakthrough opens a new chapter into the exploration of the cosmos, one where electromagnetic radiation is no longer our only tool to "see" the universe. MIT astrophysicist Scott Hughes said in a telephone interview that we can use the gravitational waves to investigate mysterious celestial objects like black holes and neutron stars, which usually have no light.
"Every time the first detection occurs, it will be a party, no doubt," Hughes continued. "But after that, when screening becomes routine is when things start to get really interesting."
A search of the century is over. But a new cosmic exploration is just beginning.
As a final note, we want to mention the physicist Dr. Marc Favata, professor of astrophysics at Montclair State University in New Jersey, a member of LIGO, he said "it is a moment of joy, is the confirmation of the beautiful and elegant theory of Einstein". Favata earned his doctorate in astrophysics at Cornell University in 2006, and began working for LIGO in 2013.
Sources:
The Record
Maddie Stone
Wikipidia
