The Phisycs Nobel Prize 2017 has been given to the resoluted astrophysicals Rainer Weiss, Barry C. Barish and Kip Thorne.
Who are they?
Rainer Weiss is a german physicist in specialised physics gravitation.
Barry C. Barish is an american theoretical physicist specialised in physics gravitation.
Kip Thorne is an american theoretical physics specialised in physics gravitation and in astrophysics and he is also one of the greater experts about gravitational waves .
What are gravitational waves?
They are ripples in the curvature of spacetime created by a supernova wich explodes,two big stars which orbit each other or two black holes fuse together. Each one of these possibilities warps the space in the nearby. Such event this influences the motion of the planets that are closer to the supernova, the stars or the black holes. The important thing is that the celestal bodies gravitate around others due to the space curvature.
What this study is about?
It tooks almost 40 years of working to be able to do the first observation of the gravitational wave. Indeed, in September 2015, the three astrophysicists identified the gravitational waves using the LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory, placed in Louisiana and Washington): it is constituted by a great “L” tunnel long 4 Km per side. At each extremity there are suspended mirrors which permit to measure the time used by the laser light to travel in the tunnel. Thanks to this, it can identify every little movement of the light caused by the gravitational wave. Indeed, the reason why the astrophysicists took so long to do the discovery was because of the great difficulty to make precise calculation to measure a gravitational wave.
And now?
This discovery is the confirmation of the Einstein’s theory of general relativity.
From now on, the astrophysicists have new instruments to study the Universe in a better way.
Nurjana Technologies hopes also that there will be another close event like the “Breaking The Limits 2016” one which rounded up astrophysicists and physicists in Cagliari.
(written by Carlotta Bellisai – Communication and Public Relation Responsible)