The Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded for gravitational waves. Nobel Prize in Physics awarded for observation of gravitational waves Who received the Nobel Prize in Physics
The 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics will be awarded to Rainer Weiss, Barry K. Barysh and Kip S. Thorne. On Tuesday, October 3, the Nobel Committee of the Institute announced the laureates.
The 2017 Nobel laureates in physics were Rainer Weiss, Barry K. Barysh, and Kip S. Thorne for the detection of gravitational waves by the LIGO detector.
LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory) is a collaboration of more than 1,000 researchers from more than 20 countries.
On September 14, 2015, gravitational waves of the Universe, which Albert Einstein spoke about 100 years ago, were discovered for the first time. The waves appeared as a result of the collision of two black holes. It took 1.3 billion years for the waves to arrive at the LIGO detector in the United States.
Experimental confirmation of Albert Einstein's theory of gravitational waves was announced in February 2016. 100 years ago, Eintstein described in his theory of relativity that gravitational waves travel at the speed of light, filling the Universe, but he could not imagine that they could be measured. American physicists used a laser for the first time to measure the length of four-kilometer tunnels, which decreased and increased under the influence of gravitational waves.
What is the revolution?
A press release from the Nobel Committee notes that so far all types of electromagnetic radiation have been used to explore the Universe. However, “gravitational waves are direct evidence of the existence of discontinuities in the space-time plane.” “This is something completely new and different, it opens up invisible worlds. “Many discoveries await those who achieve success in the study of gravitational waves and interpret their message,” the Nobel committee said in its conclusion.
David Thouless, Duncan Haldana and Michael Kosterlitz "for their theoretical discoveries of topological phase transitions and topological phases of matter." Scientists have been studying "strange" states of matter.
As you know, Nobel Week started in Stockholm on October 2. The committee named the names on Monday. They were Jeffrey Hall, Michael Rozbash and Michael Young. Scientists will receive the award for "the discovery of the molecular mechanisms that control circadian rhythms." We are talking about cyclical fluctuations in the intensity of various biological processes associated with the change of day and night.
On October 4, the winner in the field of chemistry will be announced. The literature laureate will be announced on October 5. The winner of the Peace Prize will be announced on October 6. On October 9, the Nobel Committee will award the Swedish National Bank Prize in Economic Sciences to the memory of Alfred Nobel.
Alexander Sergeev explained the essence of the unique discovery
Gravitational waves won a Nobel Prize for their discoverers just a year and a half after their capture was announced. Moreover, all the physicists, whom we did not ask the day before, unanimously predicted the victory of the group of researchers from the international LIGO collaboration. Physicists Rainer Weiss, Barry Barish and Kip Thorne experimentally proved the existence of gravitational waves. In this list, in my opinion, there should have been another name of our compatriot Vladislav Pustovoit from MSTU. Bauman, because it was precisely according to the method proposed by him and Mikhail Herzenstein from the Research Institute of Nuclear Physics of Moscow State University that the Americans decided to catch gravitational waves. But, alas, Nobel Prizes are almost never awarded for ideas; the main thing is the implementation of these ideas in practice. One of the participants in the LIGO project from the Russian side, the director of the Nizhny Novgorod Institute of Applied Physics, President of the Russian Academy of Sciences Alexander SERGEEV, spoke about the details of the discovery of “MK”.
Gravitational waves are changes in the gravitational field that travel like waves. Their existence was predicted by Albert Einstein in 1916, and was first discovered on September 14, 2015 at LIGO, a laser-interferometer gravitational-wave observatory, by members of an international group that brought together thousands of scientists from 15 countries. The signal came from the merger of two black holes with masses of 36 and 29 solar masses at a distance of about 1.3 billion light years from Earth. Scientists announced the discovery on February 11, 2016.
This achievement was immediately put on a par with the advent of the telescope and announced the entry of humanity into the era of gravitational wave astronomy. The detector with which the waves were caught was called a tool that will allow you to “listen” to the Universe directly, despite the gas and dust clouds.
We're not saying that Nobel Prize in physics in 2017 was announced “for the discovery” of gravitational waves, after all, the discovery itself was made, as they say, at the tip of his pen by Albert Einstein. We are now talking about experimental confirmation of the existence of gravitational waves,” clarifies the head of the Nizhny Novgorod group of participants in the LIGO experiment, President of the Russian Academy of Sciences Alexander Sergeev. - If we talk about the importance of this work, it is certainly a triumph of humanity. For a long time, theorists have been exploring the possibility of the emergence of gravitational waves: either as a result of star merger processes, or as a result of supernova explosions... The possibilities of their detection here on earth were certainly assessed.
One of the most important circumstances on the path to a successful experiment was the demonstration of the first laser in 1960. Scientists realized that laser radiation has important properties in order to use it to detect gravitational waves. In 1962, an article by two Soviet scientists Mikhail Herzenstein and Vladislav Pustovoit appeared, who proposed this scheme. Their theoretical article was the forerunner of what the Americans did later. Therefore, we can rightfully assume that the ideological priority associated with the capture of gravitational waves belongs to our scientists. The now living academician Vladislav Ivanovich Pustovoit certainly deserves to be among the Nobel laureates. Well, if we talk about those who received the Nobel Prize, I also know them well. This is Barry Barish - a very interesting person who came to the project from accelerator physics (he was one of the leaders in the creation of the Texas Collider). When the collider program was closed in the 90s, the Americans very shrewdly sent a team of supercollider builders to create an installation for detecting gravitational waves. Two friends of scientists, Rainer Weiss and Kip Thorne, have been working in the field of studying gravitational waves for a long time and are its pioneers. When the Russian Academy of Sciences, represented by the Nizhny Novgorod Institute of Applied Physics, entered the LIGO collaboration in 1997, it was these two researchers who provided us with great friendly support. It should be noted that in addition to our institute, a group of employees from Moscow State University also participated in the LIGO project. Therefore, among the co-authors of the work, there are, of course, some Russian scientists. Although, unfortunately, this part was not decisive.
Like many other stories in physics, the story of gravitational waves begins with Albert Einstein. It was he who predicted (although at first he claimed completely the opposite!) that massive bodies moving with acceleration so disturb the fabric of space-time around them that they launch gravitational waves, that is, the space around these objects physically compresses and decompresses, and over time these vibrations disperse throughout the Universe, just as ripples spread across water from a thrown stone.
How to catch a gravitational wave?
Over decades of measurements, many physicists have tried to catch, that is, reliably record, gravitational waves, but for the first time this happened only on September 14, 2015. This was a measurement at the limit of precision available to mankind, perhaps the most delicate experiment modern science. The gravitational wave launched by the merger of two black holes more than a billion light years away led to the fact that the four-kilometer arms of the gravitational telescopes of the LIGO collaboration (Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory, or laser-interferometer gravitational-wave observatory) were compressed and unclenched into some then vanishing fractions of the characteristic sizes of atoms, which was recorded using ultra-precise optics. An event of absolutely cyclopean, universal proportions caused a tiny, barely noticeable echo on Earth.
“What is being used to detect gravitational waves now is the most latest achievements in the field of laser physics and vacuum technologies and the latest tools for processing and decoding information. Indeed, without the level of technology that we have now, it was impossible to imagine two or three decades ago that we could detect gravitational waves,” noted Alexander Sergeev, President of the Russian Academy of Sciences, in a conversation with a correspondent of the Attic portal. His research group from the Institute of Applied Physics of the Russian Academy of Sciences is one of the participants in the LIGO collaboration (the second Russian group is led by Valery Mitrofanov from Moscow State University).
It is not surprising that after this, physicists from LIGO took several months to check the results and only on February 11, 2016 they told the world about their discovery - the almost century-long hunt for gravitational waves finally ended in success.
After this, LIGO detected several more gravitational events. Some of them were eliminated for lack of reliability (that is, the arms of the interferometers began to oscillate again, but the same behavior in these cases could be explained by background processes), but three more events still fell into the physicists’ treasury. Gravitational waves from the merger of other black holes came to Earth on December 25, 2015, January 4, 2017, and August 14, 2017.
The last one was mentioned quite recently, less than a week ago. This time, the gravitational signal was detected using three installations: the gravitational telescope of the European collaboration VIRGO began working together with the American LIGO. The gravitational wave passed through each of the installations in turn, which made it possible to significantly increase the accuracy of determining the place of its birth.
Why is it important?
There are two main aspects here. The first one is fundamental. Predictions of gravitational waves are an important part of the general theory of relativity (GR), and therefore their experimental detection once again confirms GTR.
“Registration [of gravitational waves] is a powerful confirmation of the foundation on which science stands. People are confident in the general theory of relativity and confidently work with it... This is the most fundamental thing. Of course, there was nowhere to go, it was necessary to give a bonus,” Boris Stern, a leading researcher at the Institute of Nuclear Research of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Astrospace Center of the Lebedev Physical Institute, told an “Attic” correspondent.
In addition, success with gravitational waves indirectly confirms many astrophysical models. After all, physicists first calculated what hypothetical signals from various gravitational events, for example the merger of black holes, should look like, and only then received exactly the same signals in observation.
The second aspect of the importance of gravitational waves is a little less fundamental - it is rather about expanding the capabilities of humanity. Four events in two years is already a trend. According to physicists, the accuracy of gravitational telescopes will only increase further, only more events will be recorded, and so we will see our world from another, unusual angle. Gravitational telescopes are now being added to optical, X-ray, radio and many other telescopes.
With their help you can “see” many literally invisible things. For example, the merger of the same black holes most likely does not leave any traces in any range of electromagnetic waves, and, accordingly, can only be detected using gravitational telescopes.
What will happen next?
There are different forecasts here. Some talk about new physics, others are waiting for the discovery of relict gravitational waves that have been walking throughout the Universe since the first moments of its creation.
“These are only the first gravitational waves from astrophysical, albeit very unusual objects - black holes. But now all astrophysicists will be waiting for discoveries from those eras when our Universe was born. Apart from gravitational waves, no signals come from there. And the fact that we have learned to catch them - we have opened a channel that will allow us to look into the time when the Universe was born, and maybe even before that,” Vladimir Lipunov, head of the space monitoring laboratory of the State Inspectorate of Moscow State University, told the Attic correspondent.
But the most realistic scenario is the simultaneous detection of gravitational events using other telescopes.
Now LIGO and VIRGO are already sending the coordinates of events to other telescopes (for example, the automatic telescopes of the MASTER system, which is headed by Lipunov), but they have never seen any “imprints” of waves in other ranges. Therefore, all these gravitational events remain to some extent anonymous - we know at what approximately distance from the Earth two black holes met and what their mass was, but where exactly did this happen or what, for example, was in the place of the black holes before that, to say can not.
Therefore, physicists are eagerly awaiting the detection of gravitational waves from some other event, for example, the collision of two neutron stars, which should be visible in other ranges. According to rumors, at the end of August, physicists had even already registered such a signal from two neutron stars in the NGC 4993 galaxy, 130 million light years from Earth, but so far there is no official confirmation of this. But what we have is already quite enough for one of the fastest Nobel Prize awards - after the discovery, scientists waited less than two years for it.
And this seems to be just the beginning scientific history. “These three telescopes (meaning two LIGO telescopes and one VIRGO - approx. "Attic") made another great discovery - This is where we have already participated. But I can’t talk about this now. On October 16 there will be a press conference at Moscow State University and live broadcast from America,” said Lipunov (emphasis added – approx. "Attic").
So, hold your breath, fasten your seat belts. It seems that the story of the hunt for gravitational waves does not end at the Nobel Prize ceremony.
All winners of the 2017 Nobel Prize, one of the most prestigious awards in the world, have been announced.
The Nobel Prize is awarded in the fields of literature, physics, medicine, chemistry and for contributions to world peace. Since 1969, an unofficial Nobel Prize in Economics has been awarded.
The awards ceremony takes place annually on December 10. In Stockholm, prizes are awarded in the field of physics, chemistry, medicine, literature and economics, and in Oslo - in the field of peace.
Korrespondent.net explains why he was given the Nobel Prize in 2017.
Nobel Prize in Medicine: Biological Clock
The Physiology or Medicine Prize went to Geoffrey Hall, Michael Rosbash and Michael Young for their work on biological rhythms.
“For the discovery of the molecular mechanisms that control circadian rhythms,” is the formulation of the Nobel Committee. Circadian rhythms are cyclical fluctuations in the intensity of various biological processes associated with the change of day and night.
It has long been known that every organism has a so-called biological clock. The study of this phenomenon began in the 18th century. The study of internal clocks has become a completely independent branch of science, which is called chronobiology.
The award winners studied fruit flies. They managed to discover a gene in them that controls biological rhythms.
Scientists have found that this gene encodes a protein that accumulates in cells during the night and is destroyed during the day.
The genes that determine the functioning of the biological clock were discovered back in the 1980s and 90s. They are called: period (the protein that is produced with its help is called PER), timeless (TIM protein) and doubletime (DBT protein).
Hall, Rosbash and Young are credited with identifying these genes and analyzing how they work in fruit flies. Thus, scientists figured out how the biological clock of these flies works - that is, how genes determine their behavior during the day.
Subsequently, they isolated other elements responsible for the self-regulation of the “cellular clock” and proved that the biological clock works in a similar way in other multicellular organisms, including humans.
The internal clock is responsible for, among other things, sleep cycles, blood pressure, hormone levels and body temperature. They influence all life on earth, from single-celled cyanobacteria to higher vertebrates.
What's the use? There are people whose biological clocks are disrupted due to mutations in certain genes. For example, they want to sleep by seven in the evening and wake up at three or four in the morning. If they cannot afford to sleep at this particular time, then this leads to lack of sleep and all the negative consequences that arise from this.
In addition, through knowledge of the mechanisms, it is possible to identify periods when certain drugs are more effective and at the same time cause fewer adverse reactions.
Note that people who work night shifts are more likely to develop myocardial infarction, stroke, obesity and diabetes.
Theoretically, thanks to this knowledge, it is possible to create drugs to correct cycles and help people who have to stay awake at a time when the body needs sleep.
Nobel Prize in Physics: Gravitational Waves
The 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to the creators of the international LIGO collaboration, thanks to which the first gravitational waves were discovered, predicted by scientist Albert Einstein 100 years ago.
Dr. Rainer Weiss, Dr. Kip Thorne and Dr. Barry Barish and their colleagues worked on their project for several decades. The discovery, made in 2015, involved thousands of people working on five continents.
About a billion years ago, at a distance of 1.3 billion light years from Earth, two black holes with masses of 36 and 29 solar masses circled each other, gradually drawing closer together under the influence of mutual gravity, until they collided and merged into one.
As a result of such a collision, a colossal release of energy occurred - in a split second, approximately three solar masses turned into gravitational waves, the maximum radiation power of which was approximately 50 times greater than from the entire visible Universe.
The approach, collision and merger of two black holes threw the surrounding space-time continuum into chaos and sent powerful gravitational waves in all directions at the speed of light.
By the time these waves reached our Earth (on the morning of September 14, 2015), the once powerful roar of cosmic proportions had turned into a barely audible whisper.
However, two several kilometers long detectors of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory recorded easily recognizable traces of these waves.
The detection of gravitational waves confirmed the prediction of Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity made in 1915.
Scientists say that compared to the prizes of recent years, this is one of the most deserved prizes, because it is a fundamental discovery that has been awaited for 100 years.
You can listen to gravitational waves:
What's the use? Before recording gravitational waves, scientists knew about the behavior of gravity only from the example of celestial mechanics and the interaction of celestial bodies. But it was clear that the gravitational field has waves and space-time can be deformed in a similar way.
The fact that we had not seen gravitational waves before was a blind spot in modern physics. Now this blank spot has been closed, another brick has been laid in the foundation of modern physical theory. This is a most fundamental discovery. Nothing comparable for last years did not have.
After further development of technology, it will be possible to talk about gravitational astronomy - about observing traces of the most high-energy events in the Universe.
Nobel Prize in Chemistry: Cryo-electron microscopy
The 2017 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded for the development of high-resolution cryo-electron microscopy for determining the structures of biomolecules in solutions.
The laureates were Jacques Dubochet from the University of Lausanne, Joachim Frank from Columbia University and Richard Henderson from the University of Cambridge.
Cryo-electron microscopy is a form of transmission electron microscopy in which a sample is examined at cryogenic temperatures.
The technique is popular in structural biology because it allows the observation of specimens that have not been stained or otherwise fixed, showing them in their native environment.
Electron cryomicroscopy slows down the movement of the atoms entering a molecule, which allows one to obtain very clear images of its structure.
The information obtained about the structure of molecules is extremely important, including for a deeper understanding of chemistry and the development of pharmaceuticals.
Cryoelectron image of GroEL proteins suspended in amorphous ice at 50,000x magnification
As noted in a press release from the Nobel Committee, the scientists' research helps improve and simplify the visualization of biomolecules. Cryo-electron microscopy, which the scientists developed, “moved biochemistry into a new era.”
“Scientific breakthroughs are often built on the successful visualization of objects invisible to the human eye. However, the “biochemical maps” remained empty for a long time. Cryo-electron microscopy changes this situation,” the Nobel Committee explains its decision.
The arrangement of atoms in molecules: a) the protein responsible for the “biological clock”; b) a pressure meter that is used in the hearing organs; c) Zika virus
What's the use? It is extremely important to know the structure of a protein, since the mechanism of its action is fundamental, because man, like all creatures on Earth, is a protein form of life.
Using the knowledge that cryoelectron microscopy provides, it is possible to create drugs that interact with proteins and modify their activity.
It is also possible to invent proteins with new functions that humans have not yet learned how to create, since there is no knowledge of exactly how different proteins work.
The two main industries that will benefit from this knowledge are biotechnology and medicine. This is one of the steps, including, towards creating a cure for cancer.
Nobel Prize in Literature: The illusory nature of connection with the world
The winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2017 was the British writer of Japanese origin Kazuo Ishiguro, winner of numerous literary awards, a popular and recognized master.
“In his novels of incredible emotional power, he reveals the abyss hidden behind our illusory sense of connection with the world,” the Nobel committee said in its explanation.
As critics note, he received the Nobel Prize as one of the most famous, respected, read and discussed prose writers of our time, and one should not look for political subtext here.
Kazuo Ishiguro/Getty
All of Ishiguro's books explore the theme of collective and individual memory to varying degrees.
Great success came to Ishiguro with the novel The Remains of the Day in 1989, dedicated to the fate of a former butler who served a noble house all his life.
For this novel, Ishiguro received the Booker Prize, and the jury voted unanimously, which is unprecedented for this award.
The writer's fame was greatly supported by the release in 2010 of the dystopian film Never Let Me Go, which takes place in an alternative Britain at the end of the 20th century, where children who donate organs for cloning are raised in a special boarding school. The film stars Andrew Garfield, Keira Knightley, and Carey Mulligan. In 2005, this novel was included in Time magazine's list of the 100 best.
Still from the film Never Let Me Go
In addition to them, the novel The White Countess was also filmed.
Kazuo's latest novel, The Buried Giant, published in 2015, is considered one of his strangest and most daring works.
This is a medieval fantasy novel in which the journey of an elderly couple to a neighboring village to visit their son becomes a road to their own memories. Along the way, the couple defends themselves from dragons, ogres and other mythological monsters.
British and American critics note that Ishiguro (who calls himself British, not Japanese) has done a lot to transform English into the universal language of world literature. Ishiguro's novels have been translated into more than 40 languages.
Nobel Peace Prize: Fight against Nuclear Weapons
The international campaign to ban nuclear weapons received the Nobel Peace Prize.
"The organization is being awarded for its work to draw attention to the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of any use of nuclear weapons, and because of its innovative ideas to achieve a treaty-based ban on such weapons," the Nobel committee said.
Chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee Berit Reiss-Andersen noted that the threat of using nuclear weapons is now at the highest level in a long time.
“Some countries are modernizing their existing nuclear arsenals, others are looking for ways to acquire nuclear weapons, a striking example of which is the DPRK,” she said.
ICAN protest outside the American embassy in Berlin / Getty
Now in the world there is no full-fledged ban on nuclear weapons, unlike the ban on chemical and biological weapons, Reiss-Andersen noted.
“With its work, ICAN helps fill the legal vacuum in this area,” Reiss-Andersen said, recalling ICAN’s main brainchild - the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, approved at the UN General Assembly in July this year and opened for signature by countries on September 20.
The treaty was signed by 53 countries, but none of them possess nuclear weapons.
The main organizer of the campaign was the organization Physicians of the World for the Prevention of Nuclear War, created by Soviet and American scientists in 1980 and received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1985.
ICAN consists of 468 organizations in 101 countries. ICAN's headquarters are located in Geneva. Beatrice Fihn from Sweden has been the executive director of the organization since July 2014, before which she was an ICAN delegate from the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom.
Nobel Prize in Economics: Behavioral Economics
American Richard Thaler won the 2017 Nobel Prize in Economics for his contributions to the study of behavioral economics.
Behavioral economics studies the influence of social, cognitive and emotional factors on economic decision-making by individuals and institutions and the consequences of this influence on markets.
Simply put, it is a discipline that studies irrational human behavior.
Behavioral economists are interested not only in the phenomena occurring in the market, but also in the processes of collective choice, which also contain elements of cognitive errors and selfishness when making decisions by economic agents.
People don't always make rational decisions when it comes to the economy. Despite the fact that the optimal result can often be calculated, something forces a person to act differently from what, at first glance, is most profitable.
Psychological and social factors influence prices, resource allocation, and so on. Behavioral economics deals with these phenomena.
This economics with a human face aims to improve the predictive capabilities of economic theory by rethinking its premises.
This approach, in particular, required the abandonment of the neoclassical interpretation of rationality as maximizing income, but without abandoning rationality as the principle of maximizing one's own utility.
Utility can come not only from money, but also from feelings, which, along with material interests, can be taken into account in the generalized utility function.
Thus, one of the key works in behavioral economics devoted to the measurement of true, or “experienced” utility, is called Return to Bentham.
Economists have found that people, it turns out, work very selectively with information (availability heuristic), in particular, they are susceptible to the influence of crowds (information cascades), tend to exaggerate their own predictive abilities (the phenomenon of overconfidence), and poorly understand the relationship between different phenomena (regression to the mean) , and their stated preferences can be distorted by changing only the form of task presentation, but not the task itself (framing effect).
Psychologist Daniel Kahneman, with whom Thaler worked, is considered one of the founders of behavioral economics.
In 2002, Kahneman received the Nobel Prize in Economics with the wording “for the use of psychological techniques in economic science, especially in the study of the formation of judgments and decision-making under conditions of uncertainty.”
Kahneman shared the 2002 Nobel Prize with Vernon Smith, considered one of the founders of experimental economics.
Barish's role, also a Caltech faculty member, is that he brought together many projects into a single LIGO and took over management functions. Compared to the other LIGO co-founders, Thorne is not only one of the world's leading experts on general relativity (and, in particular, the theory of gravity), but also one of the world's most famous popularizers of science. He became one of the inspirations for the creation of the film Interstellar, during the filming of which he also acted as a scientific consultant and executive producer of the film. Thus, Thorne is the first Hollywood producer to receive a Nobel Prize.
2. Russian participation
Being a predominantly American project, LIGO brings together several dozen scientific groups, employing about 1 thousand scientists from around the world. Two Russian groups are also participating in the project - one led by Moscow professor Valery Mitrofanov, the other led by Nizhny Novgorod scientist Alexander Sergeev.
Sergeev, who has been heading the Russian Academy Sciences, RBC, that the basis for the discovery was laid back in 1962 by the Soviet scientist Vladislav Pustovoit, who proposed a scheme for using a laser to detect gravitational waves. Nevertheless, the 2015 discovery is, according to Sergeev, “a triumph of human thought and a triumph of equipment.”
MSU professor Mitrofanov, another LIGO participant, said that it was the three Nobel laureates who made the greatest contribution to the creation of the project. “Registering such a weak signal is a physicist’s dream. Thanks to the efforts of the entire LIGO team and the laureates, it was finally possible to do this,” he said in a conversation with RBC.
Rainer Weiss and Kip Thorne (from left to right)
3. The essence of the discovery
LIGO's mission is to verify in practice the existence of gravitational waves, which Albert Einstein described in his general theory of relativity in 1916. Gravitational waves are vibrations of space-time (physicists also say “ripples in the fabric of space-time”) produced by the movement of massive bodies in the Universe with variable acceleration. Each of the two LIGO observatories is equipped with a gravitational wave detector placed in a vacuum and capable of detecting vibrations thousands of times smaller than the size of an atomic nucleus, the Nobel committee said. A light wave travels a distance of 3002 km between objects in a straight line in 10 ms. Since a gravitational wave is also assumed to travel at the speed of light, varying the travel time of the wave through one observatory and another is intended to help find the direction of travel, and therefore the source of the wave.
LIGO detected gravitational waves on the morning of September 14, 2015. For several months, LIGO experts, together with colleagues from the French-Italian Virgo center, analyzed the information received. In February 2016, scientists presented the results of the study: the September 14 event was indeed the first direct observation of gravitational waves. LIGO instruments, the statement said, recorded a wave from the merger of two black holes at a distance of 1.3 billion light years from Earth.
4. A new tool for penetrating the Universe
The discovery of gravitational waves in the message of the Nobel Committee was called a “revolution in astrophysics”, which provides fundamental new way space exploration. “A treasure trove of discoveries awaits those who can catch these waves and read the message hidden within them,” the press release says.
Over the past two years, LIGO and Virgo physicists have recorded the movement of gravitational waves three more times. The last sighting took place on August 14, 2017, and was officially announced last week. LIGO spokesman David Shoemaker noted that a new round of joint observations by LIGO and Virgo experts is scheduled for the fall of 2018 and similar discoveries are “expected once a week or more often.”
As Professor Sheila Rowan from the University of Glasgow noted, the joint work of LIGO and Virgo has made it possible to “expand the amount of data we will receive in the future that will help us better understand the Universe.”
LIGO participant Professor Mitrofanov told RBC that the detection of gravitational waves opens up a new field of science. “We used to look at what was happening in deep space, mainly in the electromagnetic range. And now an information channel such as gravitational waves has been added, and it has much more possibilities. They go back to the first moments after the Big Bang, when our Universe was formed,” he said.
Thorne himself spoke about the potential capabilities of humanity after the discovery of gravitational waves in his book “Interstellar: The Science Behind the Scenes.” It was published in 2015, shortly after the release of the blockbuster film Interstellar and shortly before the discovery of LIGO.
LIGO Executive Director David Reitze (Photo: Gary Cameron/Reuters)
5. Science and cinema
Thorne's research interests include finding possible practical applications of this knowledge. For example, we're talking about about movement in time and space. Since the 1980s, Thorne has been studying the possibility of the existence of so-called wormholes, or “wormholes” - peculiar “tunnels” in space that allow you to instantly move from one point to another. Einstein wrote about the probable existence of such “tunnels,” explaining a number of provisions of his theory of relativity. Thorne, who develops this theory, is one of the authors of the “passable wormhole” hypothesis. Thorne assures that at the current stage of technological development, interstellar flights are impossible. “With 21st century technology, we are unable to reach other star systems in less than thousands of years of travel. Our only illusory hope for interstellar travel is a wormhole or other extreme form of space-time curvature,” he writes in last book. Thorne hopes that breakthroughs in the study of gravitational waves will help move closer to solving this question.
Thorne visualized his theoretical and practical developments in the film Interstellar, which was released in the fall of 2014. "I got the chance Lucky case involved in its creation from the very beginning, helping [director Christopher] Nolan and his colleagues weave components of true science into the fabric of the story," Thorne wrote.
In fact, Thorne acted as the creator of the idea for the film itself, and while working on the film, he tried to simulate existing gravitational theories. Starting work on the film in 2005, Thorne set two conditions for director Steven Spielberg, who was originally going to take on the film. The events of the film must not contradict the laws of physics, and the physical theories used in the script must be scientifically supported, that is, accepted by at least part of the scientific community.
6. Friends and rivals
For Thorne, being awarded the Nobel Prize was at least his ninth scientific award within a year and a half since the publication of the message about the discovery of LIGO. Nevertheless, he has been studying gravity for the last half century.
Almost from the very beginning of his research activities, Thorne has been friends with another famous popularizer of science and explorer of the Universe, Stephen Hawking. The views of the two scientists on cosmic phenomena sometimes coincided, sometimes diverged. Friends and rivals regularly make public bets on scientific issues. The last such debate, which began in 1991 (for experts, Thorne admitted the existence of naked singularities, Hawking did not) ended in 1997 with the victory of Kip Thorne. He received from his opponent £100 and a certain item of clothing with an inscription in which Stephen admitted defeat (Kip Thorne does not give other details in his story about this story).
Now the rivalry between the two luminaries of world science is becoming even more dramatic: Stephen Hawking does not yet have a Nobel Prize. However, following the success of Interstellar, which won an Oscar for best visual effects (to which Thorne had a direct connection), Thorne announced that he was preparing a new science fiction film - and this time together with Hawking. He spoke about this in November 2016 in a lecture at the physics department of Moscow State University.
Laureates of the Nobel Prize in Physics 2017
Rainer Weiss born in 1932 in Berlin. After the Nazis came to power in Germany, Weiss's parents moved first to Czechoslovakia, then to the United States. He received his bachelor's degree from MIT in 1955, then completed his doctorate at Princeton University, and has been teaching at MIT since 1964. He is the author of dozens scientific works on astrophysics, gravity and the use of lasers.
Kip Thorne born in 1940 in Utah into a Mormon family. Now, however, the scientist calls himself an atheist. He completed his undergraduate degree at Caltech in 1962 and then defended his dissertation on geometrodynamics (the reduction of physical objects to geometric ones) at Princeton University. Since 1967, he has taught theoretical physics at Caltech. Author of several scientific theories and works on astrophysics.
Barry Barish born in Nebraska in 1936. Soon after his birth, the family moved to California, where Barish attended the University of Berkeley, and since 1963 he worked at Caltech. His research interests include experimental high-energy physics. Since the 1980s, he has been interested in creating equipment to capture magnetic and other waves, and in 1994 he inspired the creation of the joint LIGO project.
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