Gravitational Waves Are Awesome

Everything you need to know about gravitational waves. In February 2016 scientists announced the first detection of gravitational waves by humans on Earth. This was a huge, world changing, discovery. The gravitational waves were caused by a pair of colliding black holes 1.3 billion light years away 1.3 billion years ago. This video summaries all the of the mind blowing facts about the gravitational waves and describes LIGO, the incredibly sensitive telescope that detected them.

#gravitationalwaves #space #DomainOfScience

Errata and clarifications.

I endeavour to be as accurate as possible in my videos, but I am human and definitely don’t know everything, so there are sometimes mistakes. Also, because my videos are summaries of some quite complex science, I make simplifications. Some of these are intentional because I don’t have time to go into full detail, but sometimes they are unintentional and here is where I clear them up.

1. I got the month of the original detection wrong! It was September 2015, not November 2015. Silly me, my apologies.
2. “1.3 billion years ago, 1.3 billion light years away” This is incorrect and an oversight on my part. I completely forgot to take into account the expansion of the Universe. The resulting black hole is 1.3 billion light years from us today, but was closer to us when the collision happened, which means that it happened less than 1.3 billion years ago. I tried to work out exactly when but was stumped because I couldn’t find the function for the acceleration of the expansion of the universe. The redshift of the signal from the black holes was about 10%, so I thought the collision was 10% closer in time than 1.3 billion years i.e. 1.18 billion years, but I think it might be a bit more complicated than that.
3. LIGO schematic animation. I made a couple of silly errors here. The first circular mirror that the laser hits should be 90º to the way I oriented it: half the laser light is transmitted and half reflected, each one going up a different arm.
4. LIGO schematic animation. When the laser bounced back and forth it should bounce between the two suspended mirrors and not go all the way back to the diagonal mirror.
5. VIRGO is near Pisa, not at Trento as I drew on the map. I said the right thing but drew the wrong thing. My apologies.
6. ‘A second even more powerful collision.” Wrong again! The second collision was less powerful and the signal was more buried in the noise.

I’m not happy with the number of flat out mistakes I made on this one! I will try better in the future. I blame it on the Christmas spirits.

If you would like to find out more about gravitational waves and the detection here are the original papers and some very informative links.

Articles:
What they sound like:

Also, if you enjoyed this video, you will probably like my science books, available in all good books shops around the work and is printed in 16 languages. Links are below or just search for Professor Astro Cat. They are fun children's books aimed at the age range 7-12. But they are also a hit with adults who want good explanations of science. The books have won awards and the app won a Webby.

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[wendten]

this is by far the best explanation i have seen so far on the topic.. very well done..

[timothychung]

Please do videos about
1. String theory
2. Loop quantum gravity
3. Dark energy and matter
4. Things like do you believe the unuverse is expanding in an accelerating speed/ decelerating speed/it gets pulled back by it's own gravity?

Please reply if you see this, THANKS!

[LeiosLabs]

These are some fantastic visualizations. Great video!

[endingalaporte]

Dominic. I discovered your channel 10mins ago. I love your video. I will definetly support you on patron. I wish you the best for making us realise how exiting our situation is!!

[davidwrightme]

So that's what it sounds like when two massive black holes collided huh? Bwoop!

[sagnikmukherjee]

The two animation videos that you made are really very well done. As someone who is interested in astophysics but too lazy to read articles, I will definitely say that this is by far one of the best productions on Youtube that I have seen. You should definitely keep this up! And please make the map of mathematics, I will be looking forward to it.

[mariosspyrou]

2019 here
Black hole photograph is out
Nice

[JayDonga]

Having great knowledge on some topic and being able to explain it exceptionally well is a different thing. Very few can do it like you. Thanks!

[salwafaishalalkatiri]

This channel makes me like physics, I couldn't understand physics in my school, but from this video, I became more excited for learning physics. Thank you so much!

[obiarnold]

Brilliant. When you played that sound, I passed out from awe.

[tomconti-leslie]

Great video, really well explained! Your animation system is fantastic. That last zoom out at the end made me wonder if you'd make your final image available on flickr or something like you did with the map of physics? And I'm defninitely in favour of a map of mathematics video too :)

[LikeAGroove]

the way you explain and illustrate all these things is just amazing, please make more of these animation videos :D

[Ninkira]

The explanation of where the first detected gradational wave was thrilling. Would it be worth it to make an update with the subsequent notable discoveries? Or are such explanations of
the project's discoveries found somewhere, collected?

[ljcalderon]

I can't believe it's been almost 2yrs since they detected gravitational waves! I remember hearing about it as if it was yesterday. I had no idea that the LIGO detectors had been turned on just 2 days before they received their first signal. Amazing. Another awesome video, Dominic. Can't wait for the next one!

[zcross]

This is simply amazing! how can you dislike this??!? Please never stop these videos. EXPLAIN TO ME EVERYTHING!

[ravivadali]

The best simple comprehensive explanation. Kudos to the great work.

[samueltso]

Thank you for the production of this film. I, a physics graduate some 40 years ago and then never toughed it again, do enjoy watching the film and find it very easy to understand which has raised my interests again. I was very interested in special and general relativity as well as quantum mechanics during my study time. Hope you can produce more short films on these two very interesting subjects.

[frankhalderson]

This video is so well done and the subject is so mind blowing. The possibilities are so exciting. I actually welled up a little bit with emotion. Well done!

[baum]

Its crazy how good you are in explaining this....

I was literally nearly to cry because it’s so fascinating <3

[djfwalker]

Brilliant, thanks very much and please keep it up !! And a happy new year !