Albert Einstein’s gravitational waves has been confirmed by scientists at Washington’s National Science Foundation and Moscow State University.
The discovery could be the key to new understanding of the universe; the breakthrough can possibly be the biggest in physics in a century.
“A very weak space time wiggles which propagate at the speed of light” were officially confirmed Thursday.
LIGO Laboratory Executive Director, David Reitze announced to Washington, “Ladies and gentlemen! We have detected gravitational waves, we did it!"
“These gravitational waves are produced by two colliding black holes, [that] came together, merged and formed a single black hole about 1.3billion years ago,” Reitze added.
One of the most important variables in Einstein’s theory of relativity are these ripples in the fabric of space time. Interestingly, it took astronomers decades to detect them, even though they were pretty sure that gravitational waves existed.
The discovery had been made with the use of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational – wave Observatory (LIGO) – a system of two detectors constructed to spot tiny vibrations from primary gravitational waves. Funded by the National Science foundation, LIGO’s identical detectors are located in Livingston, Louisiana, and Hanford, Washington.
The observatories, which are "the most precise measuring device ever built," recorded a signal on September 14, 2015, "nearly simultaneously," and the signal "had a very specific characteristic," the laboratories' director said.
"As time went forward, the frequency went up," he explained, adding that it took scientists months of careful checking and analysis to confirm that what had been discovered was exactly gravitational waves.
Source: www.rt.com
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