Thursday, February 11, 2016

The detection of gravitational waves, one of the last grail of physics – The Point

More than the Higgs boson, the detection of gravitational waves that may be announced Thursday by the international scientific teams, is considered one of the last Grail of physics by opening a new window on the universe and its phenomena the more violent.

the observation of these waves, which Albert Einstein predicted the existence in his theory of general relativity in 1915, needs to be presented Thursday in Washington, according a statement of the American science Foundation (NSF), an update on the research.

scientists from Caltech (California Institute of Technology), MIT and Ligo (Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory) working on the detection of these waves last fifteen years will participate. Lectures are simultaneously provided to the National Scientific Research Centre (CNRS) in Paris, and London.

The announcement of this statement Thursday comes as rumors for several weeks in the scientific community Ligo under which the teams have managed to detect these waves directly for the first time.

gravitational waves are produced by slight disturbances to the fabric of space-time as a result of displacement a large mass of object, like black holes or neutron stars.

This advanced by Einstein’s theory could be similar to round that form in the water when we cast a stone, or deformation of a net in which we put a weight with the net of space-time.

According to these rumors is observing the collision of two black holes merge and that this detection was made. The online magazine of the journal Science cites Clifford Burgess, a physicist at McMaster University in Hamilton, Canada, and a member of the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, which held the same credible rumor he had no access to documents of Ligo.

the ability to observe gravitational waves, which are very low on a microscopic scale, open a new window on yet mysterious astronomical phenomena such as gravitational collapse of stars massive, the merger of two neutron stars as well as phenomena associated with black holes that are often at the center of galaxies.

“gravity is the main force of the Universe” and its effects on spacetime produce gravitational waves that spread across the cosmos “, told AFP Tuck Stebbins, head of the laboratory of gravitational Astrophysics in NASA

-. revolutionary Period –

“If we could detect these waves it would be possible to trace the first millisecond of the Big Bang,” he says, holding that “there is no other way for the humanity to see the origins of the universe. “

According to the astrophysicist,” we are now at the threshold of a revolutionary period in our understanding of the universe “because the ability to detect these waves allow access to a new dimension of observation which today is limited to the detection of light emitted by various celestial bodies.

Catherine Nary Man, a leader of the Observatory Côte d’Azur, France, explained that the detection of these waves will allow to probe the interior of stars and perhaps solve the mystery of gamma rays, which are among the most powerful explosions in the universe and whose origin remains mysterious.

“Now we no longer observe the universe with telescopes in the ultraviolet or visible light, but we listen to the noise produced by the gravitational effects of celestial bodies on the factory space-time, which can come from the heart of the star or black hole, “she told AFP.

” and as the star or black hole stop not these waves travel at the speed of light, they come to us and then we can make models to distinguish and detect, “she predicted.

An indirect proof of the existence of gravitational waves was generated by the discovery in 1974 of a pulsar and a neutron star, by Russell Hulse and Joseph Taylor, which earned them the Nobel prize for physics in 1993.

Ligo is composed of two identical detectors of gravitational waves several kilometers long, equipped with interferometers. One of these sensors is in Livingston, Louisiana and the second at Hanford in Washington State (Northwest).

Ligo team of scientists working closely with that of the French-Italian Virgo detector located near Pisa, Italy

02.11.2016 13:46.: 31 – Washington (AFP) – AFP © 2016

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