Nobel Physics Prize Awarded to 3 Scientists for Proving Einstein’s ‘Gravitational Waves’ Theory

The 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics went to three scientists for their discoveries on gravitational waves that were theorized by Einstein a hundred years ago. (Getty Images)
The 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics went to three scientists for their discoveries on gravitational waves that were theorized by Einstein a hundred years ago. (Getty Images)
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Nobel Physics Prize Awarded to 3 Scientists for Proving Einstein’s ‘Gravitational Waves’ Theory

The 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics went to three scientists for their discoveries on gravitational waves that were theorized by Einstein a hundred years ago. (Getty Images)
The 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics went to three scientists for their discoveries on gravitational waves that were theorized by Einstein a hundred years ago. (Getty Images)

Three scientists, whose discoveries on gravitational waves, have been awarded the 2017 Nobel Physics Prize.

Rainer Weiss of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Barry Barish and Kip Thorne of the California Institute of Technology are the recipients of the award, announced by Sweden's Royal Academy of Sciences on Tuesday.

Their discoveries in faint ripples flying through the universe called gravitational waves came as proof of a theory developed by Albert Einstein a century ago. Scientists say this fundamentally alters our understanding of the universe.

The three were key to the first observation of gravitational waves in September 2015.

When the discovery was announced several months later, it was a sensation not only among scientists but the general public.

"It's a win for the human race as a whole. These gravitational waves will be powerful ways for the human race to explore the universe," Thorne told The Associated Press in a phone interview.

Weiss said he hopes that eventually gravitational waves will help science learn about "the very moment when the universe came out of nothingness."

"The best comparison is when Galileo discovered the telescope, which allowed us to see that Jupiter had moons and all of a sudden we discovered that the universe was much vaster than we used to think about. With this discovery we can study processes which were completely impossible, out of reach to us in the past," said Ariel Goobar of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

With the technology that the three developed "We may even see entirely new objects that we haven't even imagined yet," said Patrick Sutton, an astronomer at Cardiff University in Wales.

Gravitational waves are extremely faint ripples in the fabric of space and time, generated by some of the most violent events in the universe.

The waves detected by the laureates came from the collision of two black holes some 1.3 billion light-years away. A light-year is about 5.88 trillion miles.

The waves were predicted by Einstein a century ago as part of his theory of general relativity. General relativity says that gravity is caused by heavy objects bending space-time, which itself is the four-dimensional way that astronomers see the universe.

The German-born Weiss was awarded half of the 9-million-kronor ($1.1 million) prize amount and Thorne and Barish will split the other half.

Weiss in the 1970s designed a laser-based device that would overcome background noise that would disturb measurements of gravitational waves. He, Thorne and Barish "ensured that four decades of effort led to gravitational waves finally being observed," the Nobel announcement said.

The announcement said Einstein was convinced that gravitational waves could never be measured. The laureates used laser devices "to measure a change thousands of times smaller than an atomic nucleus."
In a moment of poetry aimed at making the distant and infinitesimal phenomenon understandable to non-experts, the academy announcement said gravitational waves "are always created when a mass accelerates, like when an ice-skater pirouettes or a pair of black holes rotate around each other."

The waves are like "a storm in the fabric of space-time that is produced when two black holes collide," Thorne said. The first detection came from a crash 1.3 billion light-years away. A light-year is about 5.88 trillion miles.

The prize is "a win for Einstein, and a very big one," Barish told the AP.

For the past 25 years, the physics prize has been shared among multiple winners.

Last year's prize went to three British-born researchers who applied the mathematical discipline of topology to help understand the workings of exotic matter such as superconductors and superfluids. In 2014, a Japanese and a Canadian shared the physics prize for studies that proved that the elementary particles called neutrinos have mass.

The 2017 Nobel prizes kicked off Monday with the medicine prize being awarded to three Americans studying circadian rhythms — better known as body clocks: Jeffrey C. Hall, Michael Rosbash and Michael W. Young.



China Heatwaves Boost Ice Factory Sales

A worker uses tongs to move ice blocks inside a refrigerated store at the Feichao Ice Factory in Hangzhou. Heatwaves across China have caused demand for ice to soar  - AFP
A worker uses tongs to move ice blocks inside a refrigerated store at the Feichao Ice Factory in Hangzhou. Heatwaves across China have caused demand for ice to soar - AFP
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China Heatwaves Boost Ice Factory Sales

A worker uses tongs to move ice blocks inside a refrigerated store at the Feichao Ice Factory in Hangzhou. Heatwaves across China have caused demand for ice to soar  - AFP
A worker uses tongs to move ice blocks inside a refrigerated store at the Feichao Ice Factory in Hangzhou. Heatwaves across China have caused demand for ice to soar - AFP

In a high-ceilinged room on the outskirts of eastern China's Hangzhou, workers use tongs to slide large blocks of frosty white ice along a metal track into a refrigerated truck.

Sales have picked up in recent weeks, boosted by heatwaves sweeping the whole country as summer sets in, the owner of Feichao ice factory, Sun Chao, told AFP.

Globally, heatwaves are becoming more frequent and intense because of climate change, experts say, and China is no exception -- 2024 was the country's hottest on record, and this year is also set to be a scorcher.

Last week, authorities warned of heat-related health risks across large swathes of eastern China, including Zhejiang province where Hangzhou is located.

"In the spring, autumn, and winter, a higher temperature of two to three degrees doesn't have a big impact on our sales," Sun said.

"But in the summer, when temperatures are slightly higher, it has a big impact."

Feichao is a relatively small facility that sells ice to markets, produce transporters, and event organizers.

As the mercury soared past 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) in multiple cities across China recently, ice from businesses like Sun's was used to cool down huge outdoor venues.

In neighbouring Jiangsu province, organisers of a football match attended by over 60,000 people placed more than 10,000 large blocks of ice around the stadium, according to the state-owned Global Times.

As AFP watched lorries being loaded with Feichao's ice on Wednesday, an employee from a nearby seafood shop came on foot to purchase two ice blocks -- each selling for around $3.50 -- hauling them off in a large plastic bag.

"In May and June, I can sell around 100 tonnes a day. In July, that number grows, and I can sell around 300 to 400 tonnes," Sun told AFP.

China has endured a string of extreme summers in recent years.

In June, authorities issued heat warnings in Beijing as temperatures in the capital rose to nearly 40 degrees Celsius, while state media said 102 weather stations across the country logged their hottest-ever June day.

The same month, six people were killed and more than 80,000 evacuated due to floods in southern Guizhou province.

China is the world's biggest emitter of the greenhouse gases that scientists generally agree are driving climate change and making extreme weather more intense and frequent.

It is also a global leader in renewable energy, adding capacity at a faster rate than any other country.