The media has been flooded with rumors todaynetwork about the possible discovery of gravitational waves for the first time, by an American team of astrophysicists.
The rumors were sparked by his announcement centreof astronomy at Harvard University, that next Tuesday at 18:00 Greek time he will announce in a press conference a scientific discovery of the greatest importance, without however giving more information.
From that point onwards, in social networking media and news agencies, there have been many speculations about what the discovery might be, with the most imaginative talking about detecting life in space, but it quickly prevailed the view that the news would is related to the discovery of gravitational waves, an idea derived from Albert Einstein's equations describing space and time.
According to the theory of Relativity, nothing is transmitted faster than the light, and this even applies to forces, such as gravity. Einstein's theory describes gravity through the curvature of space-time caused by mass and energy, and according to it, it is transmitted by gravitational waves, which are essentially wrinkles in the structure of space-time.
Because gravity is a very weak force, the detection of these waves has proven to be a very difficult task, and it is certainly impossible with technical means on Earth.
However, it has been suggested in the past that the detection of gravitational waves could be achieved by studying the polarization in radiation background, the aftermath of the Big Bang that created the Universe 13.8 billion years ago.
According to inflation theory, the predominant view of the evolution of the Universe, following the Big Bang followed a brief period where the universe grew exponentially in size. The main predictions of this theory are the imprinting of gravitational waves in the background radiation spectrum, which at the first moments of the Universe was much stronger due to the high energies that prevailed.
Given that the Harvard Astronomy Center houses the BICEP2 experiment, which is dedicated to study of the polarization of the background radiation, it is considered very likely that astrophysicists have detected the gravitational wave imprint of the early Universe.
If this information is confirmed, it will be one of the most important discoveries of the last century that will surely make sense. Next update will follow on Monday.
