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The 2017 Nobel Prize For Physics Goes To Three Scientists Who Proved Einstein Right (fastcompany.com)

Posted by msmash on from the recognition-time dept.

An anonymous reader shares a report: The three physicists, Rainer Weiss, Kip Thorne, and Barry Barish, won the coveted prize for the detection of gravitational waves -- the ripples in the fabric of spacetime that were first predicted by Albert Einstein a century ago. Weiss, Thorne, and Barish made the discovery as part of the LIGO/VIRGO Collaboration back in February 2016. It was then that they had recorded gravitational waves coming from the collision of two massive black holes a billion light-years away.

24 of 124 comments (clear)

  1. A billion light years by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    That's not even possible. The earth has only existed for 6,000 years.

    1. Re:A billion light years by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 4, Funny

      They are light years. They contain much less time by volume than your regular years.

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
  2. A little more detail by JoshuaZ · · Score: 4, Informative

    Kip Thorne has done a lot of impressive work, not just on LIGO. In this context though, Thorne, Weiss, and Ronald Drever (who died last year and thus wasn't eligible for the Nobel), proposed a detector of this type in the 1980s. Barry Barish got the prize as the LIGO director.

    Since the initial work with LIGO, similar apparatuses are also coming online, including Virgo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgo_interferometer . There's also a proposal to set up a similar system in India https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Initiative_in_Gravitational-wave_Observations. Having multiple detectors will have a whole host of benefits: this type of system has trouble detecting waves that come from certain angles so having multiple separate detectors will help cover those angles. Also, since we can measure the exact time difference from when a given wave hits the detectors we can use that to pinpoint the location much more narrowly. Along with neutrino telescopes, this sort of system is pretty much one of only two ways we can get information about far away stellar objects that isn't simply from the electromagnetic spectrum.

    1. Re:A little more detail by JoshuaZ · · Score: 4, Informative

      While Morley and Michelson did make inteferometers, what they were using to measure was very different than gravitational waves, and relied on a degree of sensitivity many orders of magnitude lower (hence for example they didn't use lasers (which of course they couldn't because they weren't invented yet)). Many aspects of LIGO are so different than a classical inteferometer that it really should be regarded for most purposes as a different type of instrument completely.

    2. Re:A little more detail by JoshuaZ · · Score: 4, Informative

      It dates to the 1970s when they firmed up a lot of the rules (including that it could only go to at most three people). Prior to that, it had gone to someone who had very recently died. The thought process isn't completely clear. It appears that since the original bequest stated that the reward should go to work in the previous year (although it very often in practice does not), that if the person was dead, then they had obviously not done recent enough work. Another thought process seems to be that if it is in part to promote further work, then giving it to a dead person doesn't make sense.

    3. Re:A little more detail by jellomizer · · Score: 2

      I expect there are a few reasons.
      1. The reward money and prestige should be used towards further investment into the area they have won.
      2. International legal issues of who would be the next of kin(s), In some countries Say a noble peace prize goes to someone who fought against the evil rule of his older brother. If he had died, the Evil older brother may be the one who got the Nobel Prize award, thus funding the Evil they were rewarding trying to stop.
      3. How far should you go back. They were a lot of important discoveries and actions that happened a hundred years ago, that never got a prize. Should current people be forced to be judged against everyone in the past?
      4. It isn't a lifetime achievement award. This reward is actually for a particular thing, not an overall how you lived your life.

      --
      If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
    4. Re:A little more detail by lgw · · Score: 2

      It's fundamentally the same measurement: is the speed of light the same in all directions, over time? Now we understand that there's no difference between detecting a change in distance and a change in the speed of light, but the instrument doesn't need to understand that. So, really, what's the difference in the instruments beyond sensitivity?

      Heck, the difference between GR and the aether is itself fairly subtle: turns out the aether moves along with massive objects, but substitute "flow of aether" for "curvature of spacetime" and you can make a valid subset of GR.* The difference in kind is that we now understand that time is imaginary distance (or whatever way you state the T^2 - X^2 signature of Minkowski space), so the speed of light and measurement of distance and time can't be disentangled.

      [*] There are a bunch of fun theories that are just re-statements of relativity with more complex math. But I'm not sure it's possible to have math more complex than GR, so in this case it's merely colorful.

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    5. Re:A little more detail by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      If Nobels could be awarded to dead people, the backlog of deserving winners (which becomes more apparent over time) would leave no room for contemporaries to win them.

    6. Re:A little more detail by habig · · Score: 2

      Kip Thorne has done a lot of impressive work, not just on LIGO. In this context though, Thorne, Weiss, and Ronald Drever (who died last year and thus wasn't eligible for the Nobel), proposed a detector of this type in the 1980s. Barry Barish got the prize as the LIGO director.

      A bit more context - Barish was more than merely a director. While the idea was certainly Thorne and Weiss, Barish was the guy who came in and made the whole project actually work.

      As with most modern science, hundreds of scientists and engineers have worked over decades to get the result being celebrated. But if you have to pick three, this is a good choice. Note that while the Nobels are constrained to three people, the Breakthrough Prize is not: it was awarded to the whole collaboration last year.

    7. Re:A little more detail by coastwalker · · Score: 2

      One should note that Kip Thorne also collaborated on one of the greatest physics books ever written. It should be up there with Darwins "On The Origin of Species". To quote wikipedia - Gravitation is a physics book on Einstein's theory of gravity, written by Charles W. Misner, Kip S. Thorne, and John Archibald Wheeler and originally published by W. H. Freeman and Company in 1973. Owing to its prominence, it is frequently abbreviated MTW after its authors' initials. The book, which has more than 1200 pages, resembles a large telephone book in size and shape. The cover illustration, drawn by Kenneth Gwin, is a line drawing of an apple with cuts in the skin to show geodesics. It contains 10 parts and 44 chapters, each beginning with a quotation. The bibliography has a long list of original sources and other notable books in the field. The level of the book is advanced, with the intended audience at the graduate-level and above. It is however a work of art and if you are into physics it is well worth reading the chapter introductions if nothing else. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

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    8. Re:A little more detail by ClickOnThis · · Score: 2

      I realize that you're re-introducing the aether as a "fun theory" and that's fine. However, one of the overwhelming conclusions from the Michelson-Morley experiment is that the aether does not exist because if it did, we would be able to measure the earth's movement in relation to it. The need for "more complex math" to rescue the aether is a sign that we should set it aside because of Occam's Razor.

      That's not to say that one theory is "right" and the other is "wrong" -- they're both "right" if they agree with observations. For example, the Copernican and Ptolemaic models of the solar system can both predict the future location of planets, so they're both "right". But we prefer Copernicus because it is simpler, i.e., it requires fewer presumptions.

      As far as the existence of math that is more complex than GR, there most certainly is. Learning GR is challenging, but not outrageously so. Many physics students take their first GR courses in late undergrad or early grad school.

      --
      If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
    9. Re:A little more detail by ClickOnThis · · Score: 2

      Newton's law of gravitation provides the gravitational force between two bodies as a function of the distance between them. Therefore, it is independent of the co-ordinate system in which the bodies are observed, because the distance doesn't change in those systems.

      Newton's laws of motion are stated canonically for an inertial frame of reference. They can still work in non-inertial frames, provided one introduces pseudo-forces to account for the effects of such frames.

      So, both the Copernican and Ptolemaic models can be shown to be compatible with Newton's laws of gravitation and motion. However... the Copernican model assumes the Sun is motionless. Since the Sun is a good approximation to the centre of mass of the Solar System, the Copernican model views the Solar System in a near-inertial frame, so the equations of motion expressed with Newton's laws are far simpler. The Ptolemaic model, on the other hand, requires the introduction of awkward-looking pseudo-forces in order to accommodate the non-inertial character of the Earth's reference frame.

      --
      If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
  3. Re:Another Nobel, another American by JoshuaZ · · Score: 5, Informative

    In terms of Nobel prizes per a capita the US isn't even in the top 10 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/maps-and-graphics/countries-nobel-prize-winners-per-capita/. It is a combination of the high US population and a somewhat high per a capita that has this impact. Note by the way that this data does have a few which are a bit silly since a single Nobel for a very tiny country immediately pushes it to the top of the list, but Israel, Germany, the Netherlands, and others are all on the list without relying on really tiny populations. The situation is similar with the Fields Medal (which is roughly the equivalent of the Nobel for math) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_Fields_Medallists where the US per a capita is well above average but not at all the highest, and it is the large US population which then puts it in the top. Note by the way, that this data is approximate: a lot of people (especially the US ones) are immigrants from other countries or have dual citizenship, so these sorts of numbers are necessarily approximations. The really striking thing though is that China and India have very large populations with surprisingly few such prizes; similarly, one way of seeing how much trouble Russia was having scientifically during the Cold War was how few per a capita Nobels and Fields Medals they had (although to some extent this may have also been connected to political issues).

  4. 2017 Nobel Prize For Physics by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    Thorne was profiled in one episode of a 1992 (?) six-part series on PBS called "The Astronomers", as was a Moscow-based colleague, whose name escapes me - both in the area of cosmology. While many astronomers used large-scale equipment to do their work, Thorne et al basically needed a pad of paper and a pencil. The Astronomers still one of the best series on the subject.

  5. What about the Others? by sycodon · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Building LIGO wasn't just the effort of these three. No doubt hundreds of very talented engineers participated in the design and building of LIGO not to mention the many, many bureaucrats that, although often vilified, made this possible by manipulating the levers of government and other institutions.

    I hope they receive some recognition also.

    --
    When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
    1. Re:What about the Others? by sycodon · · Score: 2

      Do you get a pay check every week, bi-weekly, or monthly?

      A Bureaucrat makes sure that you do.

      Bureaucrats can be assholes and an impediment to progress. But without Bureaucrats, most progress would never be realized.

      --
      When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
  6. What would happen if Einstein was wrong? by jellomizer · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Would they still win the award if Einstein was wrong, and their experiments disproved it?

    There is a lot of Real science that goes on, and the final results are no results, no correlation found.... Not finding something that is considered true, is just as valuable.

    --
    If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
    1. Re:What would happen if Einstein was wrong? by JoshuaZ · · Score: 3, Informative

      Yes, completely. If we had failed to detect gravitational waves it would be an incredibly big deal. Right now, we're trying to understand how to reconcile quantum mechanics and general relativity. If LIGO had not detected gravitational waves that would be a major sign of what to do, and would also help us see a large-scale area where GR breaks down (right now, QM works very well on a small scale and GR works very well on a large scale). Some people actively expressed disappointment that LIGO not only detected the waves but detected waves that matched the predictions of GR nearly perfectly.

    2. Re:What would happen if Einstein was wrong? by Khashishi · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Absolutely! That would be a very exciting development indeed, if it were to happen.
      Consider the Michelson-Morley experiment. It _failed_ to detect the aether. And it is one of the most famous experiments in history.

    3. Re:What would happen if Einstein was wrong? by Roger+W+Moore · · Score: 2

      It's damn difficult to prove that, since you didn't find it, it doesn't exist.

      Actually, conceptually it would be easy to prove that gravitational waves did not exist: just build a detector sensitive enough to detect gravitational waves from a source which is well known and understood and if you don't detect them Einstein would be wrong since GR makes clear predictions.

      Practically that is extremely hard because any source you are certain of will be so weak that it is almost guaranteed to be impossible to detect the waves it produces with current technology. This is why LIGO had to look for extremely exotic, poorly understood sources like colliding Black Holes. Had LIGO not seen a signal it would not be clear whether that was because gravitational waves did not exist or because the rate of Black Holes colliding in the Universe was incredibly low.

    4. Re:What would happen if Einstein was wrong? by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 2
      Newton was wrong. Einstein has been proven wrong. Darwin has been proven wrong.

      Einstein did not fully get quantum mechanics. He added a fudge factor to "stop" the universe from expanding. Once it was shown the universe was indeed expanding, he removed the fudge factor and admitted it was a mistake.

      Darwin had many hypotheses about many evolutionary features. His ideas of how mammals could have evolved is definitely wrong. His ideas of ocean subsidence that "raised" the islands where obviously marine shell fish fossils were found several hundred feet above sea level was wrong.

      Newton was positively hokey trying to "prove" the biblical chronology and trying to prove God's hands in the movement of planets.

      The greatness of science is: What they got right is so much it outweighs a few things they got wrong. There is absolutely no question how great they were. And being wrong is routine and normal in science, it is nothing to be ashamed of.

      And if these guys proved Einstein wrong, they will get even bigger credit and fame. And that will not detract an iota of fame or greatness of Einstein.

      --
      sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
    5. Re:What would happen if Einstein was wrong? by HuguesT · · Score: 2

      No, it disproved the existence of aether.

  7. Posthumous awards by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 2

    Okay, I realize the prize isn't supposed to be made posthumously, but - the Nobel committee should have additionally named Albert Einstein and Honorary Living Person for the day and then added him to the list.

    Sure, he's already won it before... but, it's been a century and we keep getting reminders just how amazing the guy was.

    --
    #DeleteChrome
  8. Re:Another Nobel, another American by lgw · · Score: 2

    Is that map color-coded by Nobels-per-capita, or by distance from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences building? Funny old world.

    The really striking thing though is that China and India have very large populations with surprisingly few such prizes

    They are quite far from Sweden.

    --
    Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.