not to detract from the sex ITT, but this would be pretty damn cool if I understood what the hell they are talking about http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/gravitational-waves-discovered-from-colliding-black-holes1/
we used to have a boardie (chaz I think) who clamed to be a scientist ...but he's not posted in a while
But I bet Smakie might give you a summarization
I just came back from a lecture on this! Nothing pleases me more than seeing nerdy scientists all giddy over new stuff.
It would take me forever to fully explain it, and I'm not a scientist, but let me give it a brief shot.
Assume that matter causes gravity (the curvature of space known as Einsteins Theory of Relativity), and Einstein said gravity waves must be created from disturbances in this matter, but couldn't prove it. For example, if two stars collide or a star disappears in a black hole - their combined gravitational pull becoming one creates new energy in the form or a gravity wave.
LIGO located in both Louisiana and Washington just measured the distance between two fixed points to prove that gravity waves exist. The near simultaneous movements of those points at a certain distance was proof that they were moved by something only the energy that a gravitational wave could do.
I could never get into the spacetime continuum and things like that, but gravitational waves prove disruptions in that. They prove the existence of black holes and other matter disruptions in space, and the ability to measure them means we can put time stamps on events and get closer to the big bang.
What I found most intriguing, was that Einstein knew his theory had holes, and this was one of them. Physicists around the world are now on the hunt to prove many of Einsteins theories wrong, as Einstein predicted they would do if they found the existence of these waves.
There are going to be some kids born on the spectrum 9 months from now for sure!
