One hundred years since ...

[unbeldi]

Today in 2016 it appears extremely amazing, when paging through a telephone catalog of 1916, such as the Western Electric No. 3 catalog, published that year, how far the technology of the day lagged the theoretical frame works of physics laid out that year.

In 1916, only shortly after the final formulation of the field equations of general relativity,  Einstein postulated that their wave solutions should be applied to gravity, and with that he predicted that  gravity is wavelike, just like light!   By the time of his death in 1955, when technology was quite more sophisticated and the transistor had been created, it was still the common belief that it would be impossible to actually observe gravitational waves, because it was understood that the effects of such waves would be remarkably small.

And the end of the story...
It is remarkable, that it took exactly 100 years, within  a few weeks, until the experiments succeeded and gravitational waves are claimed to have been experimentally verified.

This week, the journal Physical Review Letters reported findings from the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) confirming the theory of gravitational waves by their detection from the merger (collision) of two black holes of stellar mass to form a single black hole.

For telephone collectors it is curious and satisfying to learn that the ringdown, and other measured characteristics of the event, match the theoretical predictions.

If one reads about the details of this accomplishment, the amazing precision of modern instruments and the concepts they are based on, it seems all the more remarkable of an achievement.  This is highlighted by the fact that the paper was co-authored by scientists from 133 contributing organizations and universities, with three of the scientists already deceased recently.

Ref:  B.P. Abbot et al., Observation of Gravitational Waves from a Binary Hole Merger, Physical Review Letters 116(6), 061102-8 (12 Feb 2016).

[Mr. Bones]

Remarkable, indeed, Karl.

Thanks for posting this. Very cool stuff!

I heard about this a few days earlier, on NPR; they had an interview, and also a sound bite of this phenomenon.

I will try to see if that is still available, on their site.

Best regards!

[unbeldi]

Thanks Bones, for the reply.

[AE_Collector]

I found the topic intriguing as well...but...I did an overnight flight home from Hawaii (without getting any sleep as always) and am having trouble remembering my name at the moment. I keep thinking of a co-worker who was day dreaming in a meeting once and when asked by the boss what he thought about the plan he replied "So, what were we talking about?"

Terry