Ripples in Spacetime (Paperback)

Paperback. 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 existHow LIGO measures a distance change one thousand times smaller than a protonWhat the chirp of GW150914 revealed about two black holes no one knew existedHow the neutron star merger of 2017 forged gold and settled a decades-long debateWhy the 2023 pulsar timing array detection opened an entirely new gravitational wave windowWhat LISA, the Einstein Telescope, and Cosmic Explorer will find nextThis 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. This item is printed on demand. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability.…