Sentences with phrase «diameter of a proton»

The detectors sensed that crest missed trough by the tiniest of distances, about a thousandth the diameter of a proton.

Gravitational ripples are tiny: LIGO is tuned to detect waves that stretch and squeeze the arms by a thousandth of the diameter of a proton.

Albert Einstein had predicted gravitational waves a century ago; the trick was to figure out how to build an interferometer sensitive enough to detect changes measuring a tiny fraction of the diameter of a proton.

Doing so requires the ability to measure changes in distance on the order of one - thousandth the diameter of a proton as passing waves stretch and compress local space — one of the most delicate measurements in all of science.

This is limited, in turn, by the smallest possible distance that can be defined in the universe, referred to as the Planck length, which is 10 - 20 of the diameter of a proton.

At this time, the entire universe was roughly one - billionth of the diameter of a proton.

LIGO must be unbelievably sensitive to measure this change in the length of the legs, which is smaller than one ten - thousandth the diameter of a proton, or less than the size of a soccer ball compared with the span of the Milky Way.

That milestone required a pair of detectors so precise that they can sense quivers that squish the detectors» 4 - kilometer - long arms by just a tiny fraction of the diameter of a proton.

LIGO's instruments are designed to detect passing gravitational waves by measuring minuscule expansions and contractions of space - time — warps as little as one - thousandth the diameter of a proton.

Called gravitational waves, these undulations are so tiny that one passing through Earth would jostle us by far less than the diameter of a proton.

... if you want a large number why not take the diameter of the Universe to the diameter of a proton — amazingly enough it is also a number with 42 digits.»

But the stretch is slight — only 1/10, 000 of the diameter of a proton.

A change in the lengths of the arms smaller than one - ten - thousandth the diameter of a proton (10 - 19 meter) can be detected.

LIGO's detectors are designed to register the slightest of vibrations — 1/10, 000 th the diameter of a proton — caused by signals from space.

The initial technology deployed for LIGO was sensitive to movement of 1/1000 the diameter of a proton, but with an upgrade begun in the 2010s, LIGO's sensitivity was boosted 10-fold.

LIGO consists of two perpendicular arms, each 4 km long, which respond to this distortion, changing in length by a tiny fraction of the diameter of a proton.

The effect LIGO observed last September works out to a shift of a millionth of a millionth of a millionth of a meter — about one one - thousandth the diameter of a proton, project team members said.

The original configuration of LIGO was sensitive enough to detect a change in the lengths of the 4 - kilometer arms by a distance one - thousandth the diameter of a proton; this is like accurately measuring the distance from Earth to the nearest star — over four light - years — to within the width of a human hair.