Columbus native helped confirm gravitational waves discovery
By now you’ve probably heard that strong evidence of gravitational waves was found, which supports Einstein’s theory of general relativity and caused a general ruckus in the scientific community.
Up until last week, astronomy was based on electromagnetic waves, like waves of light, radio waves, and cosmic rays, but with the observation of gravitational waves, astronomers have an entirely new way of looking at the universe.
It’s undoubtedly a huge discovery for the world and the future of science, and Columbus native Richard O’Shaughnessy played a key role in the project.
O’Shaughnessy, who grew up in Upper Arlington, is now a theoretical gravitational wave astrophysicist and an assistant professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology in New York.
For the past 15 years he worked at LIGO (or the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory), the organization that announced the finding.
By studying binary black holes, that is, two black holes that were orbiting each other, LIGO was able to measure the gravitational waves the phenomenon produced–a first for science.
O’Shaughnessy’s role in the project was to ensure the observatory was sensitive enough to detect the binary black holes, which were observed 1.3 million light-years away from Earth.
“This is equivalent to the first time we built a telescope and looked at the sky with visible light,” O’Shaughnessy told the Columbus Dispatch. “We opened a new window on the universe”
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