Black hole researchers in US win physics Nobel
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REUTERS
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Trio Found Albert Einstein's Gravitational Waves
Three US scientists won the 2017 Nobel prize for physics on Tuesday for opening up a new era of astronomy by detecting gravitational waves, ripples in space and time foreseen by Albert Einstein a century ago.The work of Rainer Weiss, Barry Barish and Kip Thorne crowned half a century of experimental efforts by scientists and engineers.
Measuring gravitational waves offers a new way to observe the cosmos, helping scientists explore the nature of mysterious objects including black holes and neutron stars. It may also provide insight into the universe's earliest moments.
The first detection of the waves created a scientific sensation when it was announced early last year and the teams involved in the discovery had been widely seen as favourites for Tuesday's prize.
“We now witness the dawn of a new field: gravitational wave astronomy ,“ Nils Martensson, acting chairman of the Nobel Committee for Physics, told reporters. “This will teach us about the most violent processes in the universe and will lead to new insights into the nature of extreme gravity .“
Weiss said the award of the 9 million Swedish crown ($1.1 million) prize was really a recognition of around a thousand people working on wave detection. Two US-based instruments working in unison, called the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO), detected the first waves caused by colliding black holes. A European sister facility, known as VIRGO based in Italy, has also detected waves more recently .
Those spotted so far have come from very distant black holes -extraordinarily dense objects whose existence was also predicted by Einstein -that smashed together to form a single, larger black hole.
Weiss believes this is just the start. “There are a huge amount of things... in the universe that radiate gravitational waves. The black holes are the most obvious but there are many , many others,“ he said in a telephone call with the Nobel committee.
Because gravitational waves are radically different from electromagnetic waves such as radio waves, visible light, infrared light and x-rays, they are expected to reveal previously inaccessible features.
“This is just the beginning of a new roller-coaster exploration of the universe,“ said Alberto Vecchio of the University of Birmingham's Institute of Gravitational Wave Astronomy .
The signals from gravitational waves are extremely weak when they reach Earth and therefore require exquisitely accurate measurement.“These represent some of the most precise measurements that are made by physicists,“ Nobel committee member David Haviland said. The laser detectors spot changes thousands of times smaller than atomic nucleus.
Measuring gravitational waves offers a new way to observe the cosmos, helping scientists explore the nature of mysterious objects including black holes and neutron stars. It may also provide insight into the universe's earliest moments.
The first detection of the waves created a scientific sensation when it was announced early last year and the teams involved in the discovery had been widely seen as favourites for Tuesday's prize.
“We now witness the dawn of a new field: gravitational wave astronomy ,“ Nils Martensson, acting chairman of the Nobel Committee for Physics, told reporters. “This will teach us about the most violent processes in the universe and will lead to new insights into the nature of extreme gravity .“
Weiss said the award of the 9 million Swedish crown ($1.1 million) prize was really a recognition of around a thousand people working on wave detection. Two US-based instruments working in unison, called the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO), detected the first waves caused by colliding black holes. A European sister facility, known as VIRGO based in Italy, has also detected waves more recently .
Those spotted so far have come from very distant black holes -extraordinarily dense objects whose existence was also predicted by Einstein -that smashed together to form a single, larger black hole.
Weiss believes this is just the start. “There are a huge amount of things... in the universe that radiate gravitational waves. The black holes are the most obvious but there are many , many others,“ he said in a telephone call with the Nobel committee.
Because gravitational waves are radically different from electromagnetic waves such as radio waves, visible light, infrared light and x-rays, they are expected to reveal previously inaccessible features.
“This is just the beginning of a new roller-coaster exploration of the universe,“ said Alberto Vecchio of the University of Birmingham's Institute of Gravitational Wave Astronomy .
The signals from gravitational waves are extremely weak when they reach Earth and therefore require exquisitely accurate measurement.“These represent some of the most precise measurements that are made by physicists,“ Nobel committee member David Haviland said. The laser detectors spot changes thousands of times smaller than atomic nucleus.
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