After 100 Years, Einstein’s “Gravitational Wave” Discovery Was Proved Officially

The Scientists from the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) proved the One hundred-year-old controversial theory of Einstein regarding the existence of gravitation. It took scientists 100 years to prove Einstein’s theory. The theory is about a collision of  two black holes 1.3 billion years ago, sent gravitational waves out through the universe, the same waves that Einstein theorized the existence of 100 years prior in 1916.

Einstein Theory proved

Within 20 years of Einstein’s publication of his theory, he had largely convinced the scientific community of their existence but proof remained elusive for another 80 years. Einstein had just a pencil and a piece of paper to work out the numerous equations to prove his theory. But he didn’t have the facilities which LIGO has. Einstein tried to prove that the acceleration of objects caused disruptions in the space-time surface when the waves are sent out throughout the universe at the speed of light.

LIGO scientists used two detectors located in Livingston, Louisiana, and Hanford, Washington, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) began looking for gravitational waves in 2000. However, the instrumentation of LIGO in its first use wasn’t nearly sensitive enough to find them. However, after a new round of funding was made available to researchers, LIGO was upgraded a number of times between 2010 and 2015.

LIGO Detector at Hanford

Those upgrades paid off in spades when September 14, 2015, came around and the system was back online to detect “loud” chirping noises from both of the aforementioned detectors. The LIGO detectors are designed with an L-shaped antenna with two arms with each measuring over two-and-a-half miles in length. Ultra-pure glass mirrors are installed on the end of each arm and they are kept isolated from both outside light and, more importantly, any vibrations. Near the point of confluence between the two arms, a laser beam is sent out to each mirror.

LIGO has no interest in the beams canceling each other out when they are the same length, but, and this is the important bit if there is a gravitational wave passing between them one arm will be compressed while the other is a stretch. This creates a tiny, I mean really tiny (not even a proton in width), a disturbance that indicated the existence of gravitational waves.

LIGO gravitational wave detectors

LIGO team member Rainer Weiss, an emeritus professor of physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology was the man who first devised the detection equipment necessary for LIGO over three decades ago. “The description of this observation is beautifully described in the Einstein theory of general relativity formulated 100 years ago,” Weiss said in a statement that was peppered with praise for young Einstein.

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