AnonTechie writes:
"The search for gravity waves has been a century long epic. They are a prediction of Einstein's General Theory of Relativity but for years physicists argued about their theoretical existence. By literally squeezing light on a quantum level, scientists are refining detection instruments to an extent never seen before.
If you want to place bets on the date of first detection of some gravity wave then some physicists would bet on 2016, probably the majority would bet 2017. A few pessimists would say that we will discover unexpected problems that might take a few years to solve."
(Score: 2) by martyb on Wednesday February 26 2014, @02:42PM
kaalon (499) wrote:
That is an amazing article; thanks so much for the link! I am in absolute awe of the engineering that went into the design and implementation of the probe. For example, each gyroscope in the probe is only 1.5 inches in diameter. From the linked article:
Satellite orientation was determined through half-silvered mirrors, roof prisms, and photo-diodes. They needed liquid Helium to keep the sensors cold enough to perform the measurements and had a 645 gallon Dewar for this purpose. Over time some of the liquid helium would boil off. They fed this boiled-off (now gaseous) helium to micro thrusters to adjust the entire satellite's orientation.
I could go on, but it's better to just read the link.
Wit is intellect, dancing. I'm too old to act my age. Life is too important to take myself seriously.