Theories about time travel were given new rays of hope when speculations about the recent discovery of gravitational waves hit the Internet. In early January, theoretical physicist Lawrence Krauss from the Arizona State University tweeted about the alleged discovery of gravitational waves and cited his independent sources.
The said study was conducted by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO) scientists on Sep. 18, 2015. Once peer-reviewed and published, the study would be the first evidence of its existence. The much-awaited announcement was set on Feb. 11.
"My earlier rumor about LIGO has been confirmed by independent sources. Stay tuned! Gravitational waves may have been discovered!! Exciting," tweeted Krauss early in January.
The LIGO team has asked everyone to be patient but another scientist, theoretical physicist Clifford Burgess, ended up giving more hints over the weekend when he emailed McMaster University's physics department and said he had seen the evidence.
"Spies who have seen the paper say they have seen gravitational waves from a binary black hole merger," wrote Burgess in his email to the McMaster University. He added that the two LIGO interferometers spotted it with a time delay between the two black holes.
Albert Einstein predicted the gravitational waves way back in 1916 but no one had ever made a direct study about it. These gravitational waves are important in our understanding of how the Universe works. In movies, for instance, whenever a black hole is shown, we see massive, rippled grids that depict the Universe's fabric.
When a massive stellar body explodes, we see these ripples spread out from a source, which is similar when you drop a solid object in a pool of water. Its existence is almost positively conceivable but finding them is almost impossible given the vastness of space.
But with the recent launch of the world's pioneer gravitational wave detector, aptly named LISA Pathfinder, finding these waves could now be possible. LIGO is a Louisiana-based space observatory behind the LISA Pathfinder and the much anticipated research.
Right now, we'll just have to wait for LIGO's official announcement on what they really found. If gravitational waves really are true, then conspiracy theorists and paranormal fans will gain a scientific fact to back up their claims including the 800-year-old mobile phone-like artefact with cuneiform writing.
Photo: Comrade Foot | Flickr
