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It's Official: LIGO Scientists Make First-Ever Observation of Gravity Waves (economist.com)

Posted by timothy on from the somebody's-gettin'-a-nobel dept.

A few days ago, we posted reports that a major finding -- the discovery of the long-predicted gravity waves -- was expected to be formally announced today, and reader universe520 is the first to note this coverage in the Economist : It is 1.3 billion years after two black holes merged and sent out gravitational waves. On Earth in September 2015, the faintest slice of those waves was caught. That slice, called GW150914 and announced to the world on February 11th, is the first gravitational wave to be detected directly by human scientists. It is a triumph that has been a century in the making, opening a new window onto the universe and giving researchers a means to peer at hitherto inaccessible happenings, perhaps as far back in time as the Big Bang. Reader DudeTheMath adds: NPR has a nice write-up of the newly-published results: "[R]esearchers say they have detected rumblings from that cataclysmic collision as ripples in the very fabric of space-time itself. The discovery comes a century after Albert Einstein first predicted such ripples should exist. ... The signal in the detector matches well with what's predicted by Einstein's original theory, according to [Saul] Teukolsky [of Cornell], who was briefed on the results." Update: 02/11 18:08 GMT by T : Worth reading: this letter, inspirational and informative, from MIT president L. Rafael Reif, about the discovery. (Hat tip to Brian Kulak.)

5 of 460 comments (clear)

  1. Cool! by XXongo · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Cool!

    Nobody actually ever thought that gravity waves wouldn't exist-- it's pretty much impossible to come up with a version of gravity that doesn't include waves.

    But it's amazing that we can actually detect it.

    1. Re:Cool! by oh_my_080980980 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      No.

    2. Re:Cool! by gstoddart · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Wouldn't it have been conceivable, assuming some flaw in the theory of relativity

      Yes, absolutely.

      The thing here is that to date Einstein has a perfect track record. Which is pretty remarkable.

      To date, everything they've ever tested says that the theory of relativity, as far as we've been able to investigate, hasn't shown any cracks.

      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
  2. Fast by monkeyxpress · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Wow, this must be a world record for slashdot - the press release only just made it out. Having said that, this was possibly the worst kept announcement in the history of science journalism.

  3. Never can have enough legos.... by avandesande · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Build some more and we can actually pinpoint the origin of the waves.

    --
    love is just extroverted narcissism