The idea is something of a technicality, but nevertheless an interesting one.
In February 2016, an international team of physicists announced the first direct observation of gravitational waves. The waves had been produced by the gigantic collision of a pair of black holes, each about 30 times the mass of the sun—a smash so cataclysmic that it sent ripples through the fabric of spacetime.
The discovery was a triumph for the physics community. They had long known that Einstein’s theory of general relativity suggested that ripples in spacetime were possible. These waves squeeze and stretch space by distances smaller than the width of a proton. To spot them, physicists built a network of hugely sensitive detectors that cost of well over a billion dollars. So the discovery of the first waves in 2016 was both a relief and a significant success.
Now two physicists say that gravitational waves have been hiding in plain sight all along. Rituparno Goswami at the University of...
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