From Thales To Gravitational Waves The Scientific Perspective

Science has its roots in human curiosity. It is the process of exploration and research that has led to a better understanding of our surroundings: Copernicus set the Earth in its right place in our models of the Universe, Charles Darwin elucidated the mechanism of the evolution of living species, and Albert Einstein brought out the intimate connection between energy, space, and time.This book provides a reliable guide to acquaint oneself with the scientific process. It explains in easy terms how scientific investigation has historically developed to reach our present understanding of the world around us. It also discusses the place of science in modern society in relation to culture and to the technological advances that it brings.

The remarkable story of how humankind discovered gravitational waves, chronicled with unparalleled historical and scientific vision. In 2016, the LIGO and Virgo Collaborations made headlines when they announced the detection of gravitational waves—a century after Albert Einstein first predicted their existence with his general theory of relativity. With unprecedented perspective as physicists at the forefront of this discovery, Mario Díaz, Gabriela González, and Jorge Pullin provide a comprehensive and accessible account of the quest to find gravitational waves, their controversial history, and the efforts that culminated with their detection and a Nobel Prize in Physics. The Sounds of the Cosmos vividly narrates contributions from the ancient Greeks through Einstein, in addition to the breakthroughs of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, including the discovery of the Hulse-Taylor binary star system (the first of its kind ever observed) and the technology behind gravitational wave detectors. The authors' fusion of meticulous research and accessible prose makes this book an indispensable resource for the scientifically curious, lending astonishing new context to the revelation that we can “hear” the cosmos through gravitational waves. Written with exceptional historical and conceptual insight, this is a definitive and dazzling journey through “the eternal quest of humankind to understand the universe.”

This book describes detection techniques used to search for and analyze gravitational waves (GW). It covers the whole domain of GW science, starting from the theory and ending with the experimental techniques (both present and future) used to detect them. The theoretical sections of the book address the theory of general relativity and of GW, followed by the theory of GW detection. The various sources of GW are described as well as the methods used to analyse them and to extract their physical parameters. It includes an analysis of the consequences of GW observations in terms of astrophysics as well as a description of the different detectors that exist and that are planned for the future. With the recent announcement of GW detection and the first results from LISA Pathfinder, this book will allow non-specialists to understand the present status of the field and the future of gravitational wave science.

A spacetime appetizer -- Relatively speaking -- Einstein on trial -- Wave talk and bar fights -- The lives of stars -- Clockwork precision -- Laser quest -- The path to perfection -- Creation stories -- Cold case -- Gotcha -- Black magic -- Nanoscience -- Follow-up questions -- Space invaders -- Surf's up for Einstein wave astronomy

This book is to help post-graduate students to get into gravitational wave astronomy. We assume the knowledge of General Relativity theory, though we will concentrate on the physics and often omit mathematically strict derivations. We provide references to already existing literature where possible, this helps us to see a broad picture, skipping the details. The uniqueness of this book is in that it covers three frequency bands and three major world-wide efforts to detect gravitational waves. The LIGO and Virgo scientific collaboration has detected first gravitational waves and the merger of black holes become now almost a routine. We do expect many discoveries yet to come, especially in the joined gravitational and electromagnetic observations. LISA, the space-based gravitational wave observatory, will be launched around 2034 and will be able to detect thousands of GW sources in the milli-Hz band. Pulsar timing array observations have accumulated 20-years' worth of data and we expected detection of GWs in the nano-Hz band within the next decade. We describe the gravitational wave sources and data analysis techniques in each frequency band.

Gravitational waves (GWs) are a hot topic and promise to play a central role in astrophysics, cosmology, and theoretical physics. Technological developments have led us to the brink of their direct observation, which could become a reality in the coming years. The direct observation of GWs will open an entirely new field: GW astronomy. This is expe

What force do the Big Bang, the expansion of the Universe, dark matter and dark energy, black holes, and gravitational waves all have in common? This book uncovers gravity as a key to understanding these fascinating phenomena that have so captivated public interest in recent years. Readers will discover the latest findings on how this familiar force in our everyday lives powers the most colossal changes in the Universe. Written by the widely recognized French public scientist and leading astrophysicist Pierre Binétruy, the book also explains the recent experimental confirmation of the existence of gravitational waves.