Yes, Dr. Albert Einstein, Your Gravitational Waves Really Do Exist!

Summary: Signal delays from Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory detectors in Louisiana to Washington mean that gravitational waves really do exist.

California Institute of Technology (Caltech) visualization scientist Robert L. Hurt's illustration of gravitational waves generated by binary neutron stars: Robert L. Hurt/Caltech-JPL, Public Domain, via NASA

“Einstein would be beaming, wouldn’t he?” asked France Anne-Dominic Córdova, director of the National Science Foundation in Arlington, Virginia, after confirming to press Feb. 11, 2016, that gravitational waves really do exist.

Scientists base the findings of gravitational-wave detectors in Hanford, Washington, and Livingston, Louisiana, upon detection of two black holes whose collision is 1.3 billion years old. They calculate the collision at speeds approaching that of light and the black hole masses at more than 25 times that of the solar system’s sun. They describe as results of the two merging into one a new black hole whose gravitational waves outshine by 50 times all observable galaxies and stars. They expect the detection of more gravitational waves in 2016 since collisions and mergers may be common events.

Predictions that gravitational waves really do exist find their beginnings in Germany in 1916 with theoretical physicist Albert Einstein (March 14, 1879-April 18, 1955) of Ulm.

The special theory of relativity gives as the constant factor, spatially and temporally, the impossibility of anyone or anything moving faster than the speed of light. The general theory of relativity 10 years later, in 1915, has as the constant factor that space and time bends, or warps, when massive objects move. It indicates that gravity is not the movement of one mass affecting all other masses but instead the result of space-time moving when massive objects move.

Scientists judge as ultimate verification that gravitational waves really do exist density so bending space-time that black holes imprison light.

Scientists with the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory and the Virgo Interferometer in the Cascina site near Pisa, Italy, keep specifics for publication in Physical Review Letters. They list a “transient gravitational-wave signal” sweeping “upwards in frequency from 35 to 250 Hz with a peak gravitational-wave strain of 1.0 × 10−21.”

Waveforms match predictions by “general relativity for the inspiral and merger of a pair of black holes and the ringdown of the resulting single black hole.”

Researchers note initial “36+5−4M⊙ and 29+4−4M⊙” and final “62+4−4M⊙” black-hole masses at “410+160-180” Mpc luminosity-distances.

The research offers “the first direct detection of gravitational waves and the first observation of a binary black hole merger.”

CBC News @CBCNews via Twitter tweet of Feb. 11, 2016

Discovery of binary pulsar system PSR B1913+16 provided Russell Hulse and Joseph Taylor Jr. of University of Massachusetts Amherst with the 1993 Nobel Prize in Physics. Observations seven years later, in 1981, by Professors Taylor and Joel Weisberg of Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota, of PSR B1913+16’s energy losses quantified ripples indirectly.

Signal GW150914 Sept. 14, 2015, at 09:50:45 Coordinated Universal Time, revealed direct evidence by arriving 6.9+0.5-0.4 milliseconds late at Hanford, not simultaneously with arrival at Livingston.

Stephen Hawking of England’s University of Cambridge states that GW150914 confirms “a lot of theoretical work, including Einstein’s general theory of relativity, which predicts gravitational waves.”

Luis Lehner of Canada’s Perimeter Institute in Ontario told reporters that “we always discover new things” by opening new windows.

frame from a Goddard Media Studios' simulation of merger of two black holes, with resulting emission of gravitational radiation (colored fields); outer red sheets correspond to outgoing gravitational radiation that may be detectable by gravitational-wave observatories: NASA/Chris Henze (Ames), Public Domain, via NASA

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

Robert L. Hurt's illustration of gravitational waves: Robert L. Hurt/Caltech-JPL, Public Domain, via NASA @ http://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/nsf-s-ligo-has-detected-gravitational-waves

frame from a Goddard Media Studios' simulation of merger of two black holes, with resulting emission of gravitational radiation (colored fields); outer red sheets correspond to outgoing gravitational radiation that may be detectable by gravitational-wave observatories: NASA/Chris Henze (Ames), Public Domain, via NASA @ https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/details.cgi?aid=11086

For further information:

Abbott, B.P.; et al. 11 February 2016. “Observation of Gravitational Waves from a Binary Black Hole Merger.” Physical Review Letters 116 (6), 061102-1 – 061102-16. DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.116.061102
Available @ http://physics.aps.org/featured-article-pdf/10.1103/PhysRevLett.116.061102

“Announcement Thursday on Einstein’s Gravitational Waves.” Phys.Org > Physics > General Physics > Feb. 8, 2016.
Available @ http://phys.org/news/2016-02-thursday-einstein-gravitational.html

Berti, Emanuele. 11 February 2016. “Viewpoint: The First Sounds of Merging Black Holes.” American Physical Society > Physics News & Commentary.
Available @ http://physics.aps.org/articles/v9/17

Castelvecchi, Davide; and Alexandra Witze. 11 February 2016. “Einstein’s Gravitational Waves Found at Last.” Nature > News & Comment > News > 2016 > February > Article.
Available @ http://www.nature.com/news/einstein-s-gravitational-waves-found-at-last-1.19361

CBC News @CBCNews. 11 February 2016. "'Ladies and gentlemen, we have detected gravitational waves.'" Twitter.
Available @ https://twitter.com/CBCNews/status/697816328573419522

Marriner, Derdriu. 13 January 2016. “Direct Evidence of Gravitational Waves May Be Confirmed Or Not in 2016.” Earth and Space News. Wednesday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2016/01/direct-evidence-of-gravitational-waves.html

Moskowitz, Clara. 11 February 2016. “Gravitational Waves Discovered from Colliding Black Holes.” Scientific American > The Sciences > Space.
Available @ http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/gravitational-waves-discovered-from-colliding-black-holes/

NASA.gov Video. 11 February 2016. "Simulation of Merger of Two Black Holes and Gravitational Radiation." YouTube.
Available @ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1-3eClv_TY

Twilley, Nicola. 11 February 2016. “Gravitational Waves Exist: Here’s How Scientists Finally Found Them.” The New Yorker > Science & Tech > Elements.
Available @ http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/gravitational-waves-exist-heres-how-scientists-finally-found-them