3 Scientists Win Physics Nobel for Breakthrough Gravitational Waves Discovery

On Tuesday they won a Nobel Physics Prize for their roles in detecting faint ripples flying through the universe.


Three scientists won the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics today for their roles in the discovery of gravitational waves.

Albert Einstein had predicted these ripples in space a century ago. But it took until 2015 for them to be discovered for the first time and 2016 for the find to be confirmed, which was a major breakthrough in physics. Rainer Weiss of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Barry Barish and Kip Thorne of the California Institute of Technology are your winners.

Thorne told the AP: "It's a win for the human race as a whole. These gravitational waves will be powerful ways for the human race to explore the universe."

Gravitational waves are faint ripples in the fabric of space and time, generated by extremely violent events. The waves detected by the laureates came from the collision of two black holes some 1.3 billion light-years away. Since then there have been three subsequent discoveries of gravitational waves. What took a century to happen and was profoundly difficult to pull off is now becoming almost commonplace.

What took so long? Here's how we've explained it before:


The researchers made their discovery with the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory, or LIGO. The laser device, called an interferometer, must be both exquisitely precise and extremely stable. "The beam must hit the mirrors precisely. They should hardly shake at all, not even when leaves fall from nearby trees," according to a prize background paper.

The Nobel announcement explains why we should be so excited about this discovery:

So far all sorts of electromagnetic radiation and particles, such as cosmic rays or neutrinos, have been used to explore the universe. However, gravitational waves are direct testimony to disruptions in spacetime itself. This is something completely new and different, opening up unseen worlds. A wealth of discoveries awaits those who succeed in capturing the waves and interpreting their message.

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