Gabriela González: How LIGO discovered gravitational waves -- and what might be next
גבריאלה גונזלס: איך LIGO גילה גלי כבידה
Gabriela González is part of the collaboration of more than 1,000 scientists who measured for the first time the gravitational waves that Einstein predicted over 100 years ago. Full bio
Double-click the English transcript below to play the video.
his theory of general relativity,
של תורת היחסות הכללית,
שמסבירה את כוח הכבידה.
the planets -- attracts mass,
כוכבי הלכת, נמשכים,
as Newton claimed,
all of us, all the planets --
כולנו, כל כוכבי הלכת -
of space-time.
and that connects us all.
and distort its contour.
not according to Newton's laws,
this space-time curvature
המרחב-זמן
nestles up to us
when masses move,
revolve around one another
which carry energy from the system,
והכוכבים מתקרבים זה לזה.
to measure them.
working in many countries
waves for the first time.
around one another --
accelerating in speed,
at almost the speed of light,
into the space of 360 kilometers.
produced gravitational waves
to the rest of the universe.
the effects of these gravitational waves,
של גלי כבידה אלה,
is by looking for effects in distances.
passed by Earth,
the distances between you and me,
stretched and shrank a tiny bit.
is proportional to the distance.
than my slight height,
מהגובה הקטן שלי,
between the Earth and the Sun
ב Caltech וב MIT,
at Caltech and MIT --
measure distances
distances between mirrors
and many scientists
ומדענים רבים
and develop the ideas.
wave detectors, two interferometers,
לייזרים שנורים מהמרכז,
through four kilometers in-vacuum,
and then they return.
very, very sensitive;
instruments in the world.
that we want to measure come from space,
למדוד מגיעים מהחלל,
the gravitational wave effects --
and should show up on the two detectors --
וצריכים להופיע בשני הגלאים,
from the local effects,
either on one or the other.
the second-generation technology
sensitivity that we wanted --
הרגישות האופטימלית שרצינו -
two years later --
נתונים במשך כמה חודשים.
collecting a few months' worth of data.
in amplitude and frequency
in decoding this type of wave,
that they came from black holes
this would happen until much later;
ourselves that it was true,
את עצמנו שזה היה נכון,
any room for error.
really could measure these things,
produced a difference in the distance
by our standards.
waves and not sound waves,
and listen to them.
ברמקולים ולהקשיב להם.
to the first two notes of that music.
was the last fraction of a second
של שבריר שנייה
emitted vast amounts of energy --
converting into energy,
שמשות הופכות לאנרגיה
we actually dance to it.
be used for?
what else is there left to do?"
be used for?
"What is the purpose of poetry?"
of the smell of coffee?"
it's for emotion, it's for living."
עבור הרגש, כדי לחיות."
how everything works,
all of us, everyone, as kids --
for the first time and see the stars,
now have a purpose,
a new way to explore the universe.
the light of the stars
to the sound of the universe,
like gravitational waves.
כמו גלי כבידה.
from gravitational waves?
the technology to detect them,
אולי נגלה בעוד מאה שנים מהיום
that they are useful.
to derive technology from science,
more and more sensitive --
more black holes
how many there are, where they are
כדי לדעת כמה יש? והיכן?
and turn into black holes.
rotating stars in our galaxy
בגלקסיה שלנו
explosions of supernovas in our galaxy.
של סופרנובות בגלקסיה שלנו.
a whole spectrum of new sources.
to the human body:
to silent movies.
very fun, but very long --
international community of scientists,
של מדענים שעובדים כצוות
together as a team,
sometimes encountering detours --
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Gabriela González - AstrophysicistGabriela González is part of the collaboration of more than 1,000 scientists who measured for the first time the gravitational waves that Einstein predicted over 100 years ago.
Why you should listen
Gabriela González is a physicist working on the discovery of gravitational waves with the LIGO team. She was born in Córdoba, Argentina, studied physics at the University of Córdoba, and pursued her PhD at Syracuse University, which obtained in 1995. She worked as a staff scientist in the LIGO group at MIT until 1997, when she joined the faculty at Penn State. In 2001 she joined the faculty at LSU, where she is a professor of physics and astronomy. She has received awards from the American Physical Society, the American Astronomical Society and the National Academy of Sciences, and she is a member of the Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences.
González has been a member of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration since it was funded in 1997, served as the elected LSC spokesperson in 2011-2017, and is known for participating in the announcement of the discovery of gravitational waves in 2016. Her work has focused on LIGO instrument development (especially reducing noise sources and tuning alignment systems) and LIGO data calibration and diagnostics, critical to increasing the astrophysical reach of data analysis methods.
Gabriela González | Speaker | TED.com