Gravitational waves: Is gravity a quantum force?
After the unexpected discovery of the accelerated expansion of the universe (1998) and the success of the hunt for the Higgs boson (2012), the also expected detection of gravitational waves is the third major discovery in the field of fundamental physical theories in the last twenty years. What would the genius Richard Feynman, who was skeptical of their detection, say today? Kip Thorne, one creator of the giant laser detector, along with Ron Drever, from Caltech, and Rainer Ray Weiss (MIT), was “the most ambitious in terms of project success.” B. Barish lobbied the most to make a great collaboration (about 1,000 researchers and engineers and 40,000 amateurs), exactly in line with what he wrote in his article on gravity, 1973, 42 years before he succeeded, that physicists are geniuses and that “with the help of a wide section of the lay public” all “obstacles will be overcome.” They published the paper on the first direct discovery of gravitational waves in the prestigious Physical Review Letters, February 2016. Einstein’s theory was confirmed, gravitational astronomy was born, and they opened a new window in the understanding of the universe. But physicists still have a long-standing unsolved problem of how to reconcile the general theory of relativity and quantum mechanics. How to overcome the paradox that the rest of physics is quantum and gravity is classical?
Whether gravity is also a quantum interaction is the fundamental question to be answered. This is an article on gravity in general, Newton’s and Einstein’s theory of gravity, detectors, and detection of gravitational waves, its significance for science, new gravitational telescopes, and quantum gravity.
If we could construct it, the theory of quantum gravity would be the crown of human knowledge and understanding of nature. That theory would give us a unique picture and a complete description of all-natural phenomena in physics. Just as Newton caused the first revolution in physics by uniting earthly and celestial mechanics into a single theory, and just as Einstein caused another revolution by uniting physics and geometry through his general theory of relativity, similarly the theory of quantum gravity would unite the notion of geometry (gravity) with the notion of information (quantum theory), thus causing the third great revolution in physics. That third revolution would radically change our understanding of the nature of space, time, matter, and the entire existence of the Universe. Quantum gravity would be the greatest achievement of the human mind in understanding natural phenomena. Gravitational background radiation is the greatest source of information about that theory that we could ever gather.
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After the unexpected discovery of the accelerated expansion of the universe (1998) and the success of the hunt for the Higgs boson (2012), the also expected detection of gravitational waves is the third major discovery in the field of fundamental physical theories in the last twenty years. What would the genius Richard Feynman, who was skeptical of their detection, say today? Kip Thorne, one creator of the giant laser detector, along with Ron Drever, from Caltech, and Rainer Ray Weiss (MIT), was “the most ambitious in terms of project success.” B. Barish lobbied the most to make a great collaboration (about 1,000 researchers and engineers and 40,000 amateurs), exactly in line with what he wrote in his article on gravity, 1973, 42 years before he succeeded, that physicists are geniuses and that “with the help of a wide section of the lay public” all “obstacles will be overcome.” They published the paper on the first direct discovery of gravitational waves in the prestigious Physical Review Letters, February 2016. Einstein’s theory was confirmed, gravitational astronomy was born, and they opened a new window in the understanding of the universe. But physicists still have a long-standing unsolved problem of how to reconcile the general theory of relativity and quantum mechanics. How to overcome the paradox that the rest of physics is quantum and gravity is classical?
Whether gravity is also a quantum interaction is the fundamental question to be answered. This is an article on gravity in general, Newton’s and Einstein’s theory of gravity, detectors, and detection of gravitational waves, its significance for science, new gravitational telescopes, and quantum gravity.
If we could construct it, the theory of quantum gravity would be the crown of human knowledge and understanding of nature. That theory would give us a unique picture and a complete description of all-natural phenomena in physics. Just as Newton caused the first revolution in physics by uniting earthly and celestial mechanics into a single theory, and just as Einstein caused another revolution by uniting physics and geometry through his general theory of relativity, similarly the theory of quantum gravity would unite the notion of geometry (gravity) with the notion of information (quantum theory), thus causing the third great revolution in physics. That third revolution would radically change our understanding of the nature of space, time, matter, and the entire existence of the Universe. Quantum gravity would be the greatest achievement of the human mind in understanding natural phenomena. Gravitational background radiation is the greatest source of information about that theory that we could ever gather.
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