Nautilus

Top 5 Targets of a Gravity Wave Observatory

On February 3, Cliff Burgess, a physicist at McMaster University, emailed some of his colleagues about an exciting rumor—a possible discovery—that, if verified at a press conference later today, would mean a “Nobel prize is coming someone’s way.”

According to “spies,” Burgess said, an instrument called LIGO (the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory) had apparently observed a “spectacular” direct  gravitational wave signal, minute ripples in the fabric of spacetime created by distant and very massive objects—in this case, the collision and merger of two black holes,

You’re reading a preview, subscribe to read more.

More from Nautilus

Nautilus3 min read
Sardines Are Feeling the Squeeze
Sardines are never solitary. Even in death they are squeezed into a can, three or five to a tin, their flattened forms perfectly parallel. This slick congruity makes sense. In life, sardines are evolved for synchronicity: To avoid and confuse predato
Nautilus8 min readIntelligence (AI) & Semantics
Consciousness, Creativity, and Godlike AI
These days, we’re inundated with speculation about the future of artificial intelligence—and specifically how AI might take away our jobs, or steal the creative work of writers and artists, or even destroy the human species. The American writer Megha
Nautilus9 min read
Discovering the First Other Earths
Yes, you can get bad coffee in Vienna. Vienna is known for its beautiful cafés, where philosophers, poets, and scientists have found inspiration over endless cups of fantastic coffee for hundreds of years. Coffee is still at the heart of Viennese cul

Related Books & Audiobooks