Items related to Ripples in Spacetime: The Science of Gravitational...

Ripples in Spacetime: The Science of Gravitational Waves and What They Reveal About the Universe - Softcover

Veylan, Marcus

 
9798195444709: Ripples in Spacetime: The Science of Gravitational Waves and What They Reveal About the Universe

Synopsis

On September 14, 2015, two black holes that had been spiralling together for over a billion years finally merged — and the ripple they sent through the fabric of spacetime arrived at a pair of detectors in Louisiana and Washington State. The signal lasted less than a fifth of a second. It was the most extraordinary thing humanity had ever detected.

Ripples in Spacetime tells the complete story of gravitational waves: from Einstein's 1916 prediction and his own doubts about it, through Joseph Weber's false dawns and the Hulse-Taylor binary pulsar's indirect proof, to the extraordinary engineering of LIGO and the moment the universe finally spoke.


You'll discover:

  • Why Einstein predicted gravitational waves — and then spent years trying to prove they didn't exist
  • How LIGO measures a distance change one thousand times smaller than a proton
  • What the chirp of GW150914 revealed about two black holes no one knew existed
  • How the neutron star merger of 2017 forged gold and settled a decades-long debate
  • Why the 2023 pulsar timing array detection opened an entirely new gravitational wave window
  • What LISA, the Einstein Telescope, and Cosmic Explorer will find next


This is the story of a hundred-year scientific quest, a machine of almost impossible precision, and a universe far more violent — and far more audible — than anyone imagined.

Ripples in Spacetime is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand one of the greatest scientific achievements of the modern era.

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.