When landmark and complex scientific discoveries are announced, the common folks cannot be blamed for asking how they affect them. The profundity can be easily missed and this is definitely the case when it comes to gravitational waves.
The announcement a few days ago that scientists have made the first direct observations of gravitational waves, the ripples in space-time foreseen a century ago by acclaimed theoretical physicist Albert Einstein, has left the average human beings scratching their heads.
Simply put, the find is a triumph for Einstein’s celebrated general theory of relativity, one of the two pillars of modern physics and the basis of his 1916 prediction that the fabric of the universe is perturbed by gravitational energy.
The discovery is also a milestone for the gargantuan scientific apparatus – the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (Ligo) – that was the first to pick up the advance of these waves, in this case created by the violent merger of two black holes 1.3bn years ago.
Since gravitational waves carry information about their source, the ability to detect the ripples will allow researchers to study distant and elusive features of the universe, as pointed out by Traci Watson in USA Today.
When X-rays were revealed by Wilhelm Roentgen in 1895 during his experiments on cathode ray tubes, few would have known that in only a few years these high-energy electromagnetic waves would become a key component in everyday medicine from diagnosis to treatment, recalled Ian O’Neill, writing in discovery.com.
“Likewise, the first experimental production of radio waves in 1887 by Heinrich Hertz confirmed predictions by James Clerk Maxwell’s famous electromagnetic equations. Only years later, in the 1890s, a series of demonstrations by Guglielmo Marconi, who set up radio transmitters and receivers, proved they had a practical use. Also, Schrodinger’s equations describing the unfathomable world of quantum dynamics are finding an application right now in the development of super-fast quantum computing.”
As explained by O’Neill, all scientific discoveries are profound and many eventually have everyday applications that we take for granted. “For now, the practical applications of gravitational waves may seem restricted to astrophysics and cosmology - we now have a window into a “dark universe” where no electromagnetic radiation is required.”
The space science producer has predicted that scientists and engineers will find other uses for these space-time ripples besides the awesome application of probing space-time. The huge advances in optical engineering, performed by Ligo to detect these waves in the first place will inevitably spawn new technologies.
As succinctly summed up by O’Neill, ultimately, the detection of gravitational waves is a triumph for humanity that will continue to teach us new things about our universe for generations to come. “This is most definitely a golden age for science, where historic discoveries are commonplace. These discoveries drive our culture forward, making us all richer and more aware that our universe is a beautiful and complex place. And we know we have the intellectual capability to create models of how we think the universe works and then perform experiments to prove we are right.”
