The Nobel prize in physics was awarded for the discovery of gravitational waves

Rainer Weiss, Barry Barish, and Kip Thorne (who you know well for his work on the film “interstellar”) was awarded the Nobel prize in physics for the discovery of gravitational waves. The announcement itself took place in the Swedish Academy of Sciences.

On experimental confirmation of albert Einstein’s theory of gravitational waves became known in February 2016 (the opening took place in September 2015) from scientists of the LIGO laboratory. With the aid of laser measured the length of the four-kilometer-long tunnels (sleeves), which decreased and increased under the influence of gravitational waves.

Gravitational waves were one of the hottest topics last year, when the physics of LIGO – a giant two observatories located in the U.S. States of Louisiana and California – has announced that for the first time discovered direct evidence of the existence of the so-called ripples in space-time that about 100 years ago Einstein predicted. These waves travel through spacetime at the speed of light and appear as a result of some of the most catastrophic events in the Universe such as mergers of black holes or explosions of stars. They spread and affect all the known dimensions in the Universe, and therefore they can be detected by distortion of the measurements.

In the mid 1970-ies Rainer Weiss analyzed the possible sources of background noise that might disturb the measurements and also designed the detector, the laser interferometer, which this noise could be eliminated. Kip Thorne and Rainer Weiss was already firmly convinced that gravitational waves will be discovered and will revolutionize our view of the Universe.

Almost forty years have gone to confirm the assumptions of scientists. Weiss will receive half of the award at $ 1.1 million (9 million Swedish kronor), and Thorne and Barish will share the other half. Gravitational waves also usher in a new era of gravitational wave astronomy which will allow us to explore the most extreme objects in the Universe.

The Nobel prize in physics was awarded for the discovery of gravitational waves
Ilya Hel


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