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Scientists have detected gravitational waves


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Scientists are set to make a 'major' announcement about gravitational waves this coming Thursday.

The hunt for gravitational waves - ripples in the fabric of space-time that carry energy across the universe - has been going on for years. First proposed by Albert Einstein as a consequence of his General Theory of Relativity back in 1916, this cosmological phenomenon could tell us a great deal about the universe and help us to better understand everything from black holes to the Big Bang.

Read More: http://www.unexplain...cement-imminent

Update: Scientists have detected gravitational waves

Researchers at the Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) have revealed that they have for the first time observed the warping of space-time generated by the collision of two black holes situated more than one billion light years from the Earth.

Read more: http://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/news/291495/scientists-have-detected-gravitational-waves

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Scientists are set to make a 'major' announcement about gravitational waves this coming Thursday.

Read More: http://www.unexplain...cement-imminent

Very exciting if that is indeed the case! :tu:

Cheers,

Badeskov

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Very, Very cool and exciting!

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Agreed Nnicolette the pessamist in me half expects a non-peer-reviewed article to be released saying we think gravitational waves exist based in this sketchy research alongside a statement such as "In the next 5-10 years we will have a greater understanding of Gravitational Waves" which does nothing for your credability but no doubt boosts your PR and fundability even if only a little. Lets hope they actually have something worth saying other than "we need more money".

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I like science. Hope the "announcement" has some gravity to it...

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I hope it's something big or at the very least, the start of something tangible.

I'm tired of announcements for announcements that lead to nothing.

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I will announce that I am prepared to comment on this later - after thursday.

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Such a great age for the sciences.

It is indeed. And I find the last few hundred years have been as such. Newton's laws, the Copernican Revolution, the discovery of electricity and magnetism followed by the beautifully simple laws of Maxwell, Heisenberg and the uncertainty principle, Einstein and the mass/energy equivalent followed by the theories of special and general relativity, Bohr's atom and the particle wave duality...just to mention a few early discoveries. It has really been a golden age, science wise. And it is only escalating....fascinating.

Cheers,

Badeskov

Edited by badeskov
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Here is a decent little article with a short video that explains gravitational waves and how the Advanced LIGO works to we laymen. http://earthsky.org/space/have-scientists-discovered-gravitational-waves?utm_source=EarthSky+News&utm_campaign=0b180e966a-EarthSky_News&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c643945d79-0b180e966a-394012957

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Always announcements of announcements. Cut to the chase and tell me what you mean!

It's like having a teaser trailer for a teaser trailer for a trailer for a movie.

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It's like having a teaser trailer for a teaser trailer for a trailer for a movie.

Hopefully all the good parts won't be in the trailer as happens with most movies.
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I hope after all this build-up it is a worthwhile announcement, and not just something to draw attention to the centenary of General Relativity. Of course, the centenary should be highlighted, but not by some sort of publicity stunt.

On a related matter, didn't NASA trail a major announcement re. Mars late last year? I've forgotten what the announcement was.

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I saw an announcement on twitter about 10 mins ago that they'd found indirect evidence of gravitational waves. But I can't remember who tweeted it, but I do remember it was someone who got in trouble for jumping the gun about those sorts of announcements before (and getting it wrong).

edit - ARGH, WHAT WAS HIS NAME

Edited by Emma_Acid
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Gravity waves are mind bending as well as space-time bending - they travel at the speed of light and their presence alters the speed of light (in a relative sort of way). Not an easy concept to grasp.

Edited by Derek Willis
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Only took 'em 100 years...

Only took who 100 years to do what?

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How remarkable that Einstein could conceive of things that mankind couldn't prove for a century and also how remarkable that we have geniuses who can develop and fabricate the tools to actually test his theory. The tolerances and mathematics of the Advanced LIGO boggles my admittedly layman mind. I hope they have enough proof and they get their Nobels

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Hmm. Is the Telegraph jumping the gun perhaps?

http://www.telegraph...the-decade.html

It will be cool if they are right, but I've seen this happen before and suffered disappointment. I agree wholeheartedly with those who think announcing an announcement is just freekin DAFT.

Edited by ChrLzs
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How remarkable that Einstein could conceive of things that mankind couldn't prove for a century...

Fortunately, with General Relativity Einstein was also able to make a prediction that could be proven within just a few years, namely the bending of light by the Sun. That meant scientist knew he was right and that it would only be a matter of time before his other predictions - black holes and gravity waves, for example - would be proven.

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A team of physicists who can now count themselves as astronomers announced on Thursday that they had heard and recorded the sound of two black holes colliding a billion light-years away, a fleeting chirp that fulfilled the last prophecy of Einstein’s general theory of relativity.

That faint rising tone, physicists say, is the first direct evidence of gravitational waves, the ripples in the fabric of space-time that Einstein predicted a century ago. And it is a ringing (pun intended) confirmation of the nature of black holes, the bottomless gravitational pits from which not even light can escape, which were the most foreboding (and unwelcome) part of his theory.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/12/science/ligo-gravitational-waves-black-holes-einstein.html

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