- "They were first proposed by Oliver Heaviside in 1893 and then later by Henri Poincaré in 1905..."
Ripples in the fabric of spacetime caused by massive objects moving or colliding, which provide a new way to observe the Universe and test general relativity.
General Relativity: A theory of gravitation developed by Albert Einstein that describes the way objects are affected by gravity.
Black holes: Areas in spacetime where gravitational forces are so strong that nothing, including light, can escape.
Neutron stars: Extremely dense objects that are the remnants of supernova explosions and are composed of neutrons.
Binary systems: A system of two celestial objects that orbit around a common center of mass, such as two black holes or two neutron stars.
LIGO: The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory, which is a large-scale physics experiment designed to detect gravitational waves.
Virgo: An interferometric gravitational-wave detector located in Italy that is used in conjunction with LIGO.
Interferometry: A technique that uses the interference of light waves to measure small changes in distance.
Pulsars: Rapidly rotating neutron stars that emit beams of electromagnetic radiation.
Gravitational wave sources: Astrophysical events that produce detectable gravitational waves, such as black hole mergers or supernova explosions.
Data analysis: Using statistical methods and computer algorithms to interpret and extract information from gravitational wave signals.
- "Gravitational waves were later predicted in 1916 by Albert Einstein..."
- "Gravitational waves...propagate as waves outward from their source at the speed of light."
- "Gravitational waves transport energy as gravitational radiation, a form of radiant energy similar to electromagnetic radiation."
- "...Newton's law of universal gravitation...does not provide for their existence, since that law is predicated on the assumption that physical interactions propagate instantaneously (at infinite speed)..."
- "The first indirect evidence for the existence of gravitational waves came in 1974 from the observed orbital decay of the Hulse–Taylor binary pulsar..."
- "...the observed orbital decay of the Hulse–Taylor binary pulsar, which matched the decay predicted by general relativity as energy is lost to gravitational radiation."
- "In 1993, Russell A. Hulse and Joseph Hooton Taylor Jr. received the Nobel Prize in Physics for this discovery."
- "The first direct observation of gravitational waves was made in 2015..."
- "...when a signal generated by the merger of two black holes was received by the LIGO gravitational wave detectors in Livingston, Louisiana, and in Hanford, Washington."
- "The 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics was subsequently awarded to Rainer Weiss, Kip Thorne and Barry Barish for their role in the direct detection of gravitational waves."
- "In gravitational-wave astronomy, observations of gravitational waves are used to infer data about the sources of gravitational waves."
- "Sources that can be studied this way include binary star systems composed of white dwarfs, neutron stars, and black holes..."
- "...events such as supernovae..."
- "...and the formation of the early universe shortly after the Big Bang."
- Gravitational waves...propagate as waves outward from their source at the speed of light."
- "...waves similar to electromagnetic waves but the gravitational equivalent."
- "Later he refused to accept gravitational waves."
- "The first direct observation of gravitational waves was made in 2015... The 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics was subsequently awarded... for their role in the direct detection of gravitational waves."
- "...showing one of the ways the methods of Newtonian physics are unable to explain phenomena associated with relativity."