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Gravitational waves detected

Reporter: Danut Dragoi, PhD

Many physicists remember the general relativity classes and the Einstein equations, see link in here, whose solution gives us the wave vector and the wavelength. More on this topic can be found in here.

A famous physicist, Serban Titeica,  said on his classes, link in here, that a theory is good if it is supported by experiment, otherwise is null. Since the ripples of a gravitational perturbation were recently proved experimentally, see link in here, we are thinking like Titeica, asking ourselves, what is the benefit of General Relativity. Some business people will ask for how much profit they can get, of course they talk about monetary profit. The others, it depends were in the social field they work, will say the gravitational waves detected is a great result for education, for humanity knowledge, and for intellectual enlightenment.

In a public discussion, see the video link, a participant said the benefits are in the new technology that can be transferred to the industry. Now we cannot forget the benefits from space exploration by NASA that brought innovative solutions to many industries including computers and communications. The picture below taken from the previous video,. shows the essence of actual activity on gravitation research. On the lower right corner of the picture is the LIGO, Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory, which is a Michelson type of interferometer with two perpendicular arms, each having a length of about 4 Km. Two gravitational interferometers are operating on two different locations on US, one in Livingston, Louisiana State, the other in Hanford, Washington State. Both stations detected same signal with same characteristics.

Watch these videos

1st video is from youtube

and 2nd video from Caltech, California.

Stephen Hawking, a well known author and scientist on Time and Gravitation Theory and Black Holes,  congratulated LIGO team, watch video at this link in here.

Regarding the applications in medicine, I think all physical fields, including gravitation, have an influence on our life, on all living cells. It is well established that the electric field has a major effect on living cells, since all processes in the living cells are based on electric charge transfer from one molecule to another in a complex collective material interaction. Other physical fields, like electromagnetic fields have many applications in medicine starting with RF therapeutics, laser, and optical communication. We can include here NASA’s research tremendous contribution on non-medical industries and new technologies, but this in another posting.

Now, not only the physicists can enjoy the knowledge about recent results on gravitation, but also the engineers and anybody who is interested on the philosophy of the universe asking themselves what is the answer to crucial questions like why we live in this Universe, how the Universes influence us, etc.

Source

http://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/nsf-s-ligo-has-detected-gravitational-waves