Detecting Gravitational Waves: Ripples in the Fabric of Space-Time
In Detecting Gravitational Waves: Ripples in the Fabric of Space-Time, narrator Kate Yule explains how objects moving through space-time should create waves or ripples. Rainer Weiss was fascinated by gravitational waves and created a way to detect them. Learn how the detector picked up on colliding black holes. This video is excerpted from BBC’s Einstein & Hawking: Masters of Our Universe, a mind-bending documentary that tells the story of how the two most famous scientists of the 20th Century transformed our understanding of the Universe and changed the world.
Lesson Express
Q: What did Einstein theorize about gravitational waves?
A: Einstein suggested that objects moving through space-time should cause it to ripple like waves on a pond.
Q: What machine did Rainer Weiss create to detect gravitational waves, and how did it work?
A: In Weiss's laser interferometer, light cancels itself when the waves are equal and light goes to the photodetector when they are not equal.
Q: What was Kip Thorne’s task?
A: Thorne’s task was to figure out if there were any events in the Universe that were large enough to produce gravitational waves that they could detect.
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