Einstien's Gravitational waves DISCOVERY!
Has the last great prediction of Einstein's general relativity finally been verified?US scientists have announced the discovery of ripples in space and time known as gravitational waves, in a breakthrough that could revolutionise astronomy.
Their existence was first predicted by Albert Einstein in his Theory of Relativity a century ago but has never been proven - until now.
Between the years 1687 and 1915, our best understanding of gravity was the one proposed by Sir Isaac Newton. It was Newton who formulated the famous Inverse Square Law, which says that the strength of the gravitational force between two objects is proportional to the mass of each of them, and also to the inverse of the square of the distance between them. Roughly: Gravity is stronger when objects are heavier, and when they’re closer to each other.
The force of gravity has both a strength and a direction. In our everyday lives, we feel a force pointing basically toward the center of the Earth. According to Newton, Earth’s gravity stretches far away, literally throughout the universe, though it grows weaker the further away you get. As the Earth moves, its gravitational field shifts along with it, instantly, everywhere in the universe; that instantaneous change is what gives Newtonian gravity its nonlocal character. Other stars and planets also contribute to the total gravitational force at any particular location in space, but in principle we could imagine isolating the Earth’s contribution.
For a month, the LIGO team wanted to be absolutely certain before making an official announcement. That announcement has just come. Gravitational waves were observed on September 14th, 2015, at 5:51 am ET by both of the LIGO detectors, located in Livingston, Louisiana, and Hanford, Washington. The source? A supermassive black hole collision that took place 1.3 billion years ago. When it occurred, about three times the mass of the sun was converted to energy in a fraction of a second.
No comments:
Post a Comment