Creating waves
Mid-week, the world of physics was super-excited as the quest to track down gravitational waves was finally fulfilled. But what are they, and why should you care?
For a layman
How can a common man comprehend the nano impact of gravitational waves? Eminent astrophysicist Jayant Narlikar came out with an analogy for the benefit of the layman to explain the complexity involved in detecting the gravitational wave that emanated at a distance of 1.3 billion light years from the earth.
Imagine a fly sitting on an elephant. The weight of fly is added to his body but the elephant will not feel it. What LIGO (the detector used in the discovery) detected was much smaller than the perceived impact of the fly sitting on the elephant.
What are gravitational waves?
Albert Einstein predicted gravitational waves in his general theory of relativity a century ago. They are ripples in space-time, the very fabric of the Universe.
Black holes
The strongest waves are caused by the most cataclysmic processes in the Universe — two black holes colliding, massive stars exploding, or the very birth of the Universe some 13.8 billion years ago.
New avenues in astronomy
This would open up exciting new avenues in astronomy — allowing measurements of faraway stars, galaxies and black holes based on the waves they make.
So-called primordial gravitational waves, the hardest kind to detect, would boost another leading theory of cosmology, that of “inflation” or exponential expansion of the infant Universe.
The landmark discovery will enable mankind listen to the stars, and not just see them.
In other words...
The game-changing theory states that mass warps space and time, much like placing a bowling ball on a trampoline. Other objects on the surface will “fall” towards the centre — a metaphor for gravity in which the trampoline is space-time.
When objects accelerate, they send ripples along the curved space-time fabric at the speed of light — the more massive the object, the larger the wave and the easier it would be for scientists to detect.
Gravitational waves do not interact with matter and travel through the Universe completely unimpeded.
Why is detection so important?
Finding proof of gravitational waves will end the search for a key prediction in Einstein’s theory, which changed the way humanity perceived key concepts like space and time.
