A team effort: Dr David Reitze, of the LIGO Laboratory at Caltech, shows the merging of two black holes that led to the detection of gravitational waves.
REUTERS/Gary Cameron
The discovery of gravitational waves involved a team of more than 1,000 scientists from across the globe, including Australia. So how does such an international collaboration work?
It’s taken centuries for our understanding of gravity to evolve to where it is today, culminating in the discovery of gravitational waves, as predicted by Albert Einstein a century ago.
Oh hey, I heard ripples in space and time, generated as two black holes merged. Call me back.
SXS
Four decades later, I find myself surveying 13 billion years of cosmic history and mapping events that really did happen a long time ago in galaxies far, far away.
Albert Einstein wrestled with unifying gravity with electromagnetism and quantum mechanics until his dying days.
Oren Jack Turner/Wikimedia Commons
Many people think relativity puts a hard speed limit on the universe, but it actually opens up the possibility of faster-than-light travel - if we can overcome some significant practical hurdles.
General relativity isn’t only a powerfully descriptive theory, but there’s a beauty in its elegance.
General relativity challenges our intuitive conception of how space and time work, which might explain why it’s such a popular target for crank theorists.
It’s possible that had Einstein not conceived of general relativity, then we’d still be at a loss to explain gravity to this day.
Wikimedia
Special relativity was inspired, but it took true genius to conceive of general relativity. Had Einstein not come up with it, it may have taken decades for us to figure it out.
You can feel the weight of an object on Earth because of its mass. But what is mass?
Flickr/Jeremy Brooks
A new detector built deep underground in a gold mine will hopefully unravel the mystery of dark matter.
The dispute between Philipp Lenard and Albert Einstein sheds considerable light on the power of nonscientific concerns to sway scientists.
NASA via Wikimedia Commons
Scientists are not always as scientific as many suppose. Recent well-publicized cases of scientific fraud prove that scientists can be as susceptible to the allures of wealth, power and fame as politicians…
Something very special about this year’s Pi Day.
Flickr/Dennis Wilkinson
A special Pi Day this year for those who celebrate this remarkable number on March 14, a date that can be written 3/14. Given 3.14 is Pi to two decimal places, what happens when you add in the year?
Forget about anti-ageing creams and hair treatments. If you want to stay young, get a fast spaceship. That is what Einstein’s Theory of Relativity predicted a century ago, and it is commonly known as “twin…