My Blog Title Definitely Wasn't Wrong-- Thoughts on the Detection of Gravitational Waves

Sooo.... gravitational waves have officially been detected.

It was announced Thursday. I'm sorry I didn't update this then, I really didn't feel like just explaining the whole deal. Because, man, that would be a lot of explaining to do, in my own words, when there's already so much written about it already. But then about five minutes ago, as I was about to fall asleep, I thought, why not just do a reflection and reaction? I mean, I do have some things to say. So that's what I'm gonna do.

Ok, but first, I feel like if you haven't read up, I'm not making much sense. Here, PLEASE read these articles!! They explain everything really well, I don't think I could do better on this blog

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/feb/11/gravitational-waves-discovery-hailed-as-breakthrough-of-the-century

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/12/science/ligo-gravitational-waves-black-holes-einstein.html?_r=1

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/14/opinion/sunday/finding-beauty-in-the-darkness.html?action=click&contentCollection=Science&module=RelatedCoverage&region=Marginalia&pgtype=article

That last one is a NYT opinion article, which I just read and which actually just inspired me to do the reflection.


For me, the detection is mind blowing on so many different levels. For one, it's crazy that I've been actually reading up on gravitational waves and the graviton for a while now, crazy that I'm doing my SRP project on THIS TOPIC, and then BAM, HUGE HUGE HUGE SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY PERTAINING TO THE TOPIC I'VE BEEN EXPLORING HAPPENS!!! LIKE WHAT!?! Now gravitational waves are all over the national news, international news, Facebook... This finding was going to be revolutionary regardless of when it was found, but the fact that it was found NOW??? That's crazy. Because in order for the waves to be detected, you have to have a huge redistribution of mass happening somewhere in the universe, which is hard to find, but we found one and registered it and... only a little after LIGO was updated, too, just weeks after the updates. It's actually pretty lucky the gravitational waves (GW) were detected this soon. So props to the universe for being timely. But more craziness about timeliness, the black holes collided (did you read those articles??? 'Cause I ain't explaining!!) about 1.2 BILLION years ago. And even MORE craziness about time, the signal only lasted for 20 thousandths of a second. A wave 20 thousandths of a second long from 1.2 billion years ago happened to ripple through earth just in time for LIGO to detect it and just in time for me to be doing my SRP on this subject. Seems pretty amazingly perfect to me.

But speaking of perfection, holy guacamole, those instruments are SENSITIVE. They can detect a difference in the size of the tunnels (due to the warping from the gravitational waves) of less than one ten-thousandth the size of a single proton. That's right, proton.  As Lawrence Krauss from the New York Times noted in his opinion article "Finding Beauty in the Darkness," "This difference is so small that even the minuscule motion in the position of each mirror at the end of each tunnel because of quantum mechanical vibrations of the atoms in the mirror could have overwhelmed the signal. But scientists were able to resort to the most modern techniques in quantum optics to overcome this." You've got to be just astonished at the technological advances we have reached thus far that allow us to detect changes one-thousandth the size of a proton. And also to detect a change this tiny without interference from the outside world. If I were typing this blog post inside the LIGO tunnels while they were receiving the signal, I would've ruined everything with my super disruptive clickclickclicking on the keys. I also would be dead since it's a vacuum in there. But anyhow, everything about LIGO is crazily amazing and crazily advanced. The mirrors are suspended by glass thread and insulated in layers of metal and concrete by the tunnels. Can we just take a moment to appreciate the people who designed and built, calibrated and calculated everything pertaining to LIGO? Because of our technology, detecting gravitational waves is now possible.

There are so many more amazing numbers and facts pertaining to GW and the black holes (one 36X the size our sun, the other 29X) but if you've read the articles you saw them. They're not just numbers. If you really think about them, they're insane, seemingly impossible ( like two colossal black holes spinning around each other at 30 times per second??? ), but they are our reality.

In that NYT opinion article, Krauss opens up with the lines, "WITH presidential primaries in full steam, with the country wrapped up in concern about the economy, immigration and terrorism, one might wonder why we should care about the news of a minuscule jiggle produced by an event in a far corner of the universe." But for me as a child, the question was always the other way around. Do our day to day struggles and the stories on the radio have any significance in relation to our great grand universe? Over the years, I've developed a greater awareness and appreciation for the close-to-home issues, but I still always try to keep things in perspective. The black hole collision unleashed a peak power 50 times the power output of all the stars in the universe combined. If that doesn't make you feel small, I don't know what will. But at the same time, once the waves reached LIGO, they registered as only quiet chirps, something we would've never noticed if we weren't paying attention. For something that large to get dispersed into something that small really says something about the vastness of our universe. But also, it shows that even the greatest, most colossal of events eventually fade into almost nothing. In the grandest of grand schemes of things, everything becomes insignificant with time, from black hole collisions to you and me. While matter and energy are neither created nor destroyed, entropy will eventually break down all objects and events into one meaningless everything with no defined edges, nothing to distinguish one point in space-time from another.

But the thing is, if you go about living your life in despair because we all inevitably, as said by Shakespeare's Hamlet, "returneth to dust," you're missing the point. The universe and life and everything is not meant to be mourned, but marveled. While, yes, from one perspective, all of space-time is tiny and insignificant, you must remember that you have a perspective, too, that is just as valid, if not more valid than the universal perspective. We as humans cannot perceive everything, no. We cannot perceive every birth, every death, every cataclysmic event, every star, every grain of dust, every moment in time from the beginning to end. But we can perceive what's important. From our very human perspectives, the universe is meaningful. People around the world have cried and gawked and celebrated these "insignificant" chirps emitted from two black holes 1.2 billion years ago.  We can feel emotional about gravitational waves and graduations, caucuses and coffee, because while we can't perceive everything, what we do perceive, we make meaningful.

But let us not forget, the story of LIGO is a story about how we strive to expand our perspective. As Szabolcs Marka said, we can now hear the universe, when before we could only see. “Finally, astronomy grew ears. We never had ears before.” With LIGO, we will be able to learn more about black holes and the very beginnings of the universe. We will be able to perceive more. And that is a noble goal. For as long as humans have existed, we've tried to unravel the universe's mysteries. It is true that we are always striving to get closer to the universal perspective. But will we ever get there? With each new mystery solved, new ones arise. With the discovery of the gravitational wave, we now only have more questions about the big bang and black holes, not less. But that's what makes science so fun. Why do we strive to reach the universal perspective, even if we'll never get there? To make our lives more meaningful, I guess. For me, the more I know, the more I have to appreciate.

But ahh, now I feel like I just contradicted that last paragraph. I'm still figuring this out. For now, I'm gonna go to school!

Have a nice day! :)

Carissa