Einstein Theory Of Relativity: Gravitational Waves Discovered, Scientists Discuss (VIDEOS)

Earlier today, researchers from the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO) announced that they had detected gravitational waves - ripples in space-time - originally predicted by Albert Einstein and that had remained elusive for almost a century. The Kavli Foundation of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology hosted a round-table discussion with three LIGO scientists about the discovery.

The discussion included Rainer Weiss, an emeritus professor of physics at MIT; Matthew Evans, an assistant professor of physics at MIT; and Nergis Mavalvala, an astrophysics professor at MIT. All three are members of the MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research (MKI).

The three discussed how the new found ability to study gravitational waves will not only revolutionize our understanding of events in the universe, but will bring Einstein's General Theory of Relativity to its limits, according to a news release.

"It's been a real joyride for decades and this is the pinnacle. It's been amazing to be involved in the science and technology of this effort regardless, and this discovery just makes it all really worthwhile," Mavalvala said, according to the Kavli Foundation. "I don't think any of us ever feared we were being dragged to our doom. [Laughter] We were just on this great joyride where we didn't know where we might end up."

Gravitational waves have eluded scientists for decades, with many trying but failing to detect them. The sensitivity of equipment tended to be too dull to detect them, as the waves fade over time and distance. This brought scientists to believe that the first time they were detected, "the signal would be some little small thing poking up out of the noise and we'd have to work really hard to understand what it was. But in fact, the signal we got is a very clean and beautiful event," according to Mavalvala.

In 2014, the BICEP2 Antarctic telescope project announced that it had discovered the first "smoking gun" evidence of the Big Bang, saying it recorded gravitational waves signatures in light, reported the Kavli Foundation. However, concerns about the discovery surfaced in early 2015, stating that cosmic dust, which contains refractory minerals, may have actually been the cause.

This previous case has immediately brought some concern to the science community about this discovery, however the researchers are confident in their findings.

"I don't have any concerns about that. I've gone through the instruments from one end to the other and I couldn't find anything that might have gone wrong," Evans said to the Kavli Foundation. "But the LIGO Scientific Collaboration, which is the umbrella organization for all the international institutions and scientists involved in this, is very well aware of the history. So the collaboration as a whole has been extremely careful to make sure this discovery is solid."

BREAKING: Scientists detect gravitational waves for first time, confirming Einstein's theory https://t.co/4EaMFMxZpS pic.twitter.com/GYikuAEOqn

— Mashable (@mashable) February 11, 2016

Additionally, the team says that unlike the BICEP2 discovery, the LIGO team has recorded "more than one of these gravitational wave signals. That to me is a very important piece of the whole thing," Weiss said. The LIGO team is certain that this cements the discovery, as the waves they recorded were of differing strengths. "Nature seems to behave as we would have expected, which is that it has produced not only a very powerful gravitational wave source like what we have detected and are talking about now, but also a not-so-powerful one of the same kind," Weiss continued, according to the Kavli Foundation.

The detection of these waves was brought on by the collision of two black holes, allowing researchers to listen to 20-thousandths of a second of sound caused by the black holes colliding, reported The Guardian. The fact that the waves were caused by black holes also helped confirm that what was detected was definitively gravity.

"Another thing that's really remarkable is our ability to observe a binary black hole system with LIGO that we could not have observed with light," Mavalvala said to the Kavli Foundation. "We could point the best telescopes, sensitive to more or less any electromagnetic wavelength of light, at this system and probably see nothing. We cannot observe this system with any of the other fundamental forces of nature. It has to be gravity."

LISTEN: This is the sound of two black holes colliding https://t.co/lrxMialyGL #LIGO #gravitywaveshttps://t.co/tIaLL16Ggu — RT (@RT_com) February 11, 2016

The discovery has also given astronomers something they've never had - ears, reports the BBC. Astronomy has long had eyes to stare up into the sky with, but it has always lacked the ability to listen to the otherwise silent blackness that is space. The detection of gravitational waves has provided scientists and astronomers the ability to turn their ears and eyes to the sky.

"To me, this detection means that the stars are no longer silent. The frequencies of gravitational waves that LIGO is designed to detect are actually in the human audible range," Evans said, according to the Kavli Foundation. "So when we're working on LIGO, we often take its output and put it on a speaker and just listen to it. For this binary black hole system, it made a distinctive, rising 'whoooop!' sound. It's not that we just look up and see anymore, like we always have - we actually can listen to the universe now. It's a whole new sense, and humanity did not have this sense until LIGO was built."

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