Tag: Physics

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Scientists spot a smallish black hole smashup

Black hole merger
An artist’s conception shows two black holes in the process of merging. (LIGO / Caltech / MIT Illustration)

It took months to figure it out, but the scientists in charge of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory, or LIGO, have confirmed their observations of the most lightweight black hole merger yet.

The latest detection provides further confirmation of Einstein’s general theory of relativity — and will help physicists hone their routine for combining observations from different types of scientific instruments, an approach known as “multi-messenger astronomy.”

Scientists say the spike in gravitational waves known as GW170608, detected on June 8, was set off by the smashup of two black holes weighing seven and 12 times as much as our sun.

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Gravitational wave hunters win Nobel for physics

Image: LIGO Hanford
The beamlines for the LIGO detector site at Hanford stretch out across the desert terrain of southeastern Washington. Each arm of the L-shaped detector is 2.5 miles long. (Credit: LIGO)

This year’s Nobel Prize for physics is going, unsurprisingly, to three people who represent the hundreds of researchers behind the first direct detection of gravitational waves at the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory, or LIGO.

Some of those researchers work at the LIGO detector in Hanford, Wash.

Like the Nobel-winning discovery of the Higgs boson in 2012, LIGO’s discovery was the result of decades of work, undertaken with the expectation of finding evidence for an exotic phenomenon that was long predicted.

But because of the rules for the scientific Nobel Prizes, no more than three physicists could be given a share of the $1.1 million award.

The Nobel laurels are going to MIT’s Rainer Weiss and Caltech’s Barry Barish and Kip Thorne, who are recognized as ringleaders for the $500 million LIGO project.

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The gravitational-wave hunt just got bigger

Gravitational waves
This graphic shows the ripples in spacetime created by gravitational waves emanating from the merger of two black holes. (Max Planck Institute / NCSA Illustration)

Astronomers have detected their fourth gravitational wave from the merger of two black holes, but this one marks a new milestone.

It’s the first wave picked up by the Virgo gravitational-wave detector in Italy — and the first opportunity to triangulate on its location with the twin detectors of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory, or LIGO, in Louisiana and Washington state.

The Aug. 14 event, known as GW170814, showed that the ripples in spacetime were emitted by the smash-up of two black holes about 31 times and 25 times as massive as the sun, located about 1.8 billion light-years away. The merger created a single black hole about 53 times the sun’s mass.

Three solar masses were converted directly into gravitational-wave energy, in accordance with Albert Einstein’s famous equation E=mc2.

All that follows the model set by LIGO with its three previous detections since September 2015. The new twist involves folding in the data from Virgo, which started its first full-fledged advanced run in league with LIGO on Aug. 1.

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Einstein’s love life vs. his love of physics

'Genius' TV show
Albert Einstein and his wife, Mileva Maric (played by Johnny Flynn and Samantha Colley) look over a scientific paper in “Genius,” a TV series on the National Geographic Channel. (NGC via YouTube)

National Geographic Channel’s “Genius” TV series on Albert Einstein spends almost as much time on the famous physicist’s love life as it does on his theory of relativity – and his most recent biographer, Walter Isaacson, says that’s just as it should be.

“In my biography, I begin and end by saying there’s a ‘unified field theory’ that connects Einstein’s personality with his physics, and the genius of the TV series ‘Genius’ is that it shows this,” said Isaacson, who has written biographies of Benjamin Franklin and Steve Jobs as well as “Einstein: His Life and Universe.”

Isaacson said the series’ fourth episode, airing tonight, illustrates that point. It focuses on Einstein’s “miracle year” of 1905, when he laid out not just one but four groundbreaking scientific papers, including the theory of special relativity.

But it also dwells on Einstein’s tempestuous relationship with his first wife, Serbian-born physicist Mileva Maric, who helped him with his math.

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UW’s first Nobel laureate dies at 94

Hans Dehmelt
UW physicist Hans Dehmelt holds one of his early ion traps. (UW Photo / Davis Freeman)

The University of Washington says the first Nobel laureate in its history, Hans Georg Dehmelt, has passed away in Seattle at the age of 94 after a long illness.

Dehmelt won a share of the Nobel physics prize in 1989 for his work with ion traps, a type of apparatus that uses an array of electromagnetic fields to isolate electrically charged atoms and subatomic particles, and hold them in place for highly accurate measurements.

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EmDrive thruster attracts notice from skeptics

EmDrive
The EmDrive apparatus was set up inside a vacuum chamber for testing. (White et al. via AIAA)

For years, space geeks have been intrigued by the idea of propulsion systems that don’t need propellant – and now one of the best-known concepts, known as the EmDrive, is getting a serious once-over.

The EmDrive, short for electromagnetic drive, could be revolutionary for spaceflight if it works. Spaceships could dispense with the mass of rocket fuel, and because the velocity builds up progressively, trips to Mars and beyond would be much faster and simpler.

The concept involves bouncing microwaves around a closed cavity that’s shaped like a cone. The shape supposedly funnels the microwaves to generate forward thrust.

The problem is, Newton’s Third Law of Motion says it shouldn’t work that way. If there’s an equal and opposite reaction for every action, the skeptics say the EmDrive – and the spaceship it’s bolted onto – should stay perfectly still. The effect has been compared to trying to push your car down the road by sitting in the driver’s seat and pushing against the steering wheel.

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2016: The Year in Aerospace and Science

Orbiting black holes
A visualization shows gravitational waves produced by orbiting black holes. (NASA Graphic / C. Henze)

The biggest science story of 2016 was a century in the making, and will surely earn someone a Nobel Prize. The first detection of gravitational waves from the crash of two black holes is important not only for the physics of the past and present, but for the physics of the future as well.

The discovery – made by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory, or LIGO – serves as powerful confirmation for Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity, which was published in 1916. It also points the way for scientists to study black holes and other exotic phenomena that can’t be observed using the traditional tools of astronomy.

“What’s really exciting is what comes next,” David Reitze, executive director of the LIGO Laboratory, said when the discovery was announced in February. “I think we’re opening a window on the universe – a window of gravitational wave astronomy.”

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LIGO goes back to the gravity-wave grind

Image: LIGO Hanford
The beamlines for the LIGO detector site at Hanford stretch out across the desert terrain of southeastern Washington. Each arm of the L-shaped detector is 2.5 miles long. (Credit: LIGO)

The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory is back on the hunt for ripples in spacetime, months after reporting the first signature of a black hole collision in gravitational waves.

After a series of upgrades, the LIGO detectors at Hanford in Washington state and near Livingston, La., made the transition from engineering test runs to science observations at 8 a.m. PT today.

LIGO’s first detection of gravitational waves – a phenomenon that was predicted by Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity back in 1915 – occurred during an engineering run in September 2015. But it took until February for the LIGO team to confirm the detection and report it to the world.

Scientists determined that the faint perturbations in the fabric of spacetime were created by a smash-up involving two black holes 1.3 billion light-years away. The violent collision created one bigger black hole, but in the process, an amount of mass equivalent to three suns was converted into gravitational waves.

LIGO picked up a second, smaller pulse of gravitational waves last December. Then the detectors were shut down in January for the upgrades.

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UW’s David Thouless wins Nobel physics prize

David Thouless
UW Professor Emeritus David Thouless is one of the winners of this year’s Nobel Prize for physics. (Credit: Kiloran Howard / Trinity Hall, University of Cambridge)

David Thouless, a British-born professor emeritus at the University of Washington, has been awarded half of this year’s Nobel physics prize for untangling the topological mysteries of superconductors, superfluids and other weird materials.

“Over the last decade, this area has boosted front-line research in condensed matter physics, not least because of the hope that topological materials could be used in new generations of electronics and superconductors, or in future quantum computers,” the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said in today’s announcement of the award.

The other physicists named as Nobel laureates are Princeton’s Duncan Haldane and Brown University’s Michael Kosterlitz. The Nobel Prize committee allocated half of the $930,000 (8 million Swedish kronor) award to Thouless, with the other half to be shared by Haldane and Kosterlitz.

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Quantum study sparks questions about time

Annalen der Physik
More than a century ago, Annalen der Physik published Albert Einstein’s work on special and general relativity. October’s issue features a study focusing on why the “arrow of time” points just one way.

Why do we remember the past, but not the future? It seems like a silly question, but for some scientists, it’s a deep mystery wrapped up in physics and perception.

The mystery takes another twist in a study appearing in the same journal that published Albert Einstein’s theories of relativity more than a century ago.

In October’s issue of Annalen der Physik (Annals of Physics), two researchers say the phenomenon known as the arrow of time depends on observers like us as well as the clocks and other things we observe.

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