When a child enters school, he or she is taught about gravity and its effects. Somewhere between seventh and tenth grade, the famous scientist and mathematician, Einstein, is introduced to them. We have read about him and his famous theory of general relativity. The name has become synonymous with the special relativity equation, E=mc2.
Different scientists have tried to prove the theory behind it in different ways, but they never really could find any hard evidence.
Well, it may not have been verified before, but new evidence, after over a century of research on Einstein’s version of mass-energy equivalence by hundreds of scientists, has come to light which may well have proven the theory for good.
In September 2015, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) detected slight signs of gravitational waves. And the information collected was then substituted in the equation, and guess what? The equation was found to be balanced. The world now has hard evidence that what the man said a hundred years ago was not a prediction or just a hypothesis – it was scientific law.
Gravitational waves are a kind of energy which are found to be the ripples in space-time. When LIGO detected the signals, the waves were produced due to the collision of two black holes. The collision resulted in a larger black hole that emitted the gravitational waves in space.
This may all seem like a technical lecture to you, but the interesting part is just around the corner. You see, gravitational waves are the only waves that can travel at the speed of light or even more. They can penetrate through any matter without getting altered. It doesn’t even harm the object in any way.
These gravitational waves can help us study the anatomy of anything present in the universe. This is the key that will unlock various secrets of the universe. This will not just help us to gain knowledge, but will also aid in finding solutions to the problems that the world is still unaware of.
We can find out how planets are made, how cells and atoms can be regenerated, and the like. Imagine replicating the earth’s core. We know that the earth’s temperature is continuously increasing, which is definitely not a pleasant news, but what if we could get it back to normal? Gravitational waves are going to unveil various aspects of life and matter, which are hidden from the beginning.
The gravity of the earth is a force that holds it together, but it is also the weakest force discovered. We don’t know how long this force is going to last, which means we don’t have any idea how long the earth stays in existence. Knowing the ending point will be a great help – we could make adequate arrangements for our future. Who knows, maybe we could also replicate it or just stop it from reaching the limit; let’s see what can be done.
These are just predictions, or you can say these are just a few benefits that we know we can avail through the discovery of gravitational waves. But, nature always has surprises; maybe this discovery could lead us to something that is beyond anyone’s imagination just yet.
