Like a boat sailing on a calm sea, or a stone dropped into a pond, objects in the universe with large amounts of mass, such as black holes, make ripples in space and time. These ripples could give us a glimpse into our past and lead to the discovery of many unsolved phenomenon. But first, scientists need to find a way to monitor these waves, and prove that they exist. Gravitational waves are defined by dictionary.com as “a propagating wave of gravitational energy produced by accelerating masses, especially during catastrophic events.” This means that when two objects collide it produces pulses, or waves, of energy. These energy waves are gravitational waves. Gravitational waves move out, away from the source and can be produced by many different events.
In Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity, we learn about the theoretical prediction of gravitational waves. If gravitational waves could be detected as Einstein explains, we could easily have endless knowledge of our world’s history. In Louisiana and Washington, there exists a pair of observatories the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory, nicknamed LIGO. The observatories were designed to detect black holes and the distortions of space and time created when they collide. LIGO has two arms in an L-shape that stretch about 4 miles each and have a mirror at each end. There is also a laser bouncing continuously back and forth between the mirrors. If two black holes were to collide it would create a ripple in space-time that would distort the length of the arm, causing the laser to take more time to get between mirrors. Scientists would be able to observe and record this to prove that Einstein was correct and gravitational waves do exist.
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...ple as the death of a star or something as bug as the birth of the universe, either way it helps us know of things past and things to come. We are lucky to have been born in this day and age when so much knowledge is coming forth about our universe. It is crazy to think that something as simple as dropping a pebble into a puddle could have as much effect as I does just like a black hole effects the entire universe. Gravitational waves are extremely important and without them we would never have the possibility of knowing everything about our past. We can only hope that more research will be done and these gravitational waves will be proved true and the knowledge we learn from them will be made known to everyone.
Works Cited
http://www.space.com/17112-gravitational-waves-ligo-black-holes.html
http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/features/topics/gwaves/gwaves.html
through space. This theory came to life when Heinrich Hertz created those waves and seven
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Overbye, D. (2014, March 17). Space Ripples Reveal Big Bang’s Smoking Gun.The New York Times. Retrieved March 21, 2014, from http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/18/science/space/detection-of-waves-in-space-buttresses-landmark-theory-of-big-bang.html?_r=0
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