Any length difference — such as that caused by
gravitational waves stretching one arm while squeezing the other — will allow some light through to the detector.
Gravitational waves stretch and compress spacetime, subtly distorting objects they pass through.
Not exact matches
Like a ball bouncing off a rubber sheet, any accelerating mass should send out
gravitational waves, ripples that cause space itself to
stretch and squeeze.
But researchers had long sought more direct evidence for inflation in the form of
gravitational waves, which squeeze and
stretch space.
In one way, an oncoming
gravitational wave can squeeze space vertically and
stretch it horizontally, and then vice versa, in a repeating cycle.
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.
When a
gravitational wave moves through the detector, though, it should
stretch one arm of LIGO while shortening the other, changing the path of the beams and causing the rejoined
waves to produce a detectable pattern of light.
A
gravitational wave from a distance source
stretches space by an infinitesimal amount, and to detect that rhythmic
stretching LIGO employs two gigantic optical devices called interferometers, which essentially act as gigantic rulers.
LIGO consists of two gargantuan optical instruments called interferometers, with which physicists look for the nearly infinitesimal
stretching of space caused by a passing
gravitational wave.
Physicists on Earth are hunting
gravitational waves with laser interferometers — devices with kilometers - long arms that will change length slightly if a
wave ripples past, squeezing and
stretching space.
These changes, scientists predict, will be caused by a
gravitational wave that
stretches and squeezes space - time as it passes through the instruments.
If two people were floating near, say, a pair of merging black holes, the space between them would grow and shrink as space - time was
stretched and distorted by
gravitational waves.
When
gravitational waves reach the earth, the
waves stretch and squeeze space.
Relativity predicts exactly how much
stretching and squeezing a
gravitational wave should do.
We are attempting to detect the
gravitational waves by hanging two huge mirrors from wires, each pair of mirrors about two and a half miles apart, and as the
waves pass, the mirrors ride on that
stretching and squeezing space so they are pushed apart and pulled together, back and forth.
Finally, the newborn universe could have been agitated by distortions in space itself known as
gravitational waves, which would
stretch the whole cosmos in one direction and compress it in a perpendicular direction.
The neutron stars» union also gave researchers the opportunity to gauge the universe's expansion rate, by measuring the distance of the collision using
gravitational waves and comparing that to how much the wavelength of light from the galaxy was
stretched by the expansion.
A passing
gravitational wave would generally
stretch the arms by different amounts, and that's what the LIGO team spotted.
As a
gravitational wave passes it will compress one arm and
stretch the other while an interferometer where they meet attempts to measure the minute length difference — less than the width of an atomic nucleus.
Inflation
stretched that spacetime jittering into
gravitational waves billions of light - years in wavelength.
Gravitational waves literally
stretch space itself.
Other cosmic phenomena such as supernovae in the Milky Way and colliding neutron stars in our galactic neighborhood should also produce detectable
gravitational waves, each with their own accompanying revolutionary insights, but so far all three of LIGO's detections have been death - rattles from merging pairs of black holes in remote
stretches of the universe.
On 14 September 2015, at 9:50:45 universal time, humans detected for the first time a
gravitational wave — a rippling, infinitesimal
stretching of spacetime itself set off when two black holes spiraled into each other.
When a
gravitational wave passes by, it
stretches the paths each laser beam travels.
The discovery of
gravitational waves might give us a view of the cosmos that
stretches all the way back to the big bang and tell us if there's a theory of everything
Weiss realized that output could reveal a passing
gravitational wave, which generally would
stretch the arms by different amounts.
Weber argued that those ripples —
gravitational waves — would
stretch his cylinders and make them vibrate like tuning forks.
A passing
gravitational wave should slightly
stretch one beam while compressing the other.
LIGO's interferometers bounce laser beams between mirrors at the opposite ends of 4 - kilometre - long vacuum pipes, aiming to detect passing
gravitational waves that
stretch and compress the length of the pipes — along with the rest of space.
Gravitational waves are a measure of strain in space, an effect of the motion of large masses that
stretches the fabric of space - time — a way of viewing space and time as a single, interweaved continuum.
Feb. 28, 2018:
Gravitational waves are wrinkles in space - time that
stretch and squeeze the distances between objects.
Should a
gravitational wave travel through our planet, a tiny change in distance may be recorded by the interferometer — this represents the minute squeezing and
stretching of spacetime that occurs as
gravitational waves propagate.