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Gravitational Wave Detection

It has been determined that this year's Nobel prize in physics will go to three scientists who made an incredible breakthrough in the limits that govern our ability to understand space. The three scientists, Rainer Weiss, Barry Barish, and Kip Thorne were the leaders of a fifty-year endeavor to detect gravitational waves coming from deep space. This is considered a major advancement because before their discovery, no one had been able to prove the existence of these waves.

The concept of gravitational waves was proposed by Isaac Newton in 1916. They are defined as "ripples" in space time made of energy that occur when objects move,collide, or even exist in space. The effect is often compared to how a boat creates ripples in water. Gravitational waves are very weak however and are difficult to detect. The picture and video below illustrates the common perception of a wave.
https://youtu.be/4GbWfNHtHRg

The three soon-to-be Nobel prize winners were able to discover the waves caused by the collision of two extremely massive black holes. The detection was made by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory, AKA LIGO, a project that had been running for fifty years before a successful detection in 2015. The success of the project allows us to understand space in a way that was never before possible. Since the distance the waves can be detected from is much farther than any human or spacecraft has traveled previously, scientists will be able to observe events in deep space by finding their gravitational waves.

Works Cited:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/nobel-physics-prize-goes-to-gravitational-wave-scientists/ (article)
https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwiQ9aTJvuvWAhUI3YMKHcmKCpQQjRwIBw&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.sciencemag.org%2Fnews%2F2016%2F02%2Fgravitational-waves-einstein-s-ripples-spacetime-spotted-first-time&psig=AOvVaw3V6l4pjh6FSQPSTSTdZh4U&ust=1507911592077302 (Picture)

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