- "They were first proposed by Oliver Heaviside in 1893 and then later by Henri Poincaré in 1905..."
The study of the ripples in the fabric of space-time caused by the acceleration of massive objects.
General Relativity: The theory of gravity developed by Einstein, which describes the curvature of spacetime due to the presence of matter and energy.
Special Relativity: The theory developed by Einstein which deals with the nature of time and space when two objects are moving at a constant velocity relative to each other.
Black Holes: A region of space where the gravity is so strong that nothing, not even light, can escape.
Neutron Stars: The remnants of a supernova explosion, which are incredibly dense and small, but still follow the laws of physics.
Interferometry: A method used to measure the small changes in distance caused by gravitational waves, using laser beams to precisely measure the distance between two mirrors.
LIGO and Virgo: The two large gravitational-wave observatories in the US and Italy, respectively, which were used to detect the first gravitational waves in 2015.
Data Analysis: The process of analyzing the data collected by gravitational-wave observatories to extract information about the source of the waves.
Source Modeling: The process of using computer simulations to model the gravitational-wave signals produced by different astrophysical sources, such as black holes and neutron stars.
Multi-Messenger Astronomy: The study of astrophysical phenomena using different types of signals, such as gravitational waves, electromagnetic radiation, and neutrinos.
Future Gravitational-Wave Detectors: The new gravitational-wave observatories that are currently in development, such as LISA, the space-based observatory, and KAGRA, the observatory in Japan.
- "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."