Aestus Ajith

There's a disturbance in the force. The Universe as we know it is made up of a continuum of space and time - a space-time fabric that's curved by massive objects such as stars and black holes, and which dictates the movement of matter.  Thanks to Einstein's  gravitational waves , we know disturbances can propagate through both space and time. But what's less understood is exactly  how  that happens when properties of the fabric is continuously shifting. That could soon be about to change. Researchers have just come up with a brand new mathematical framework that could finally explain how disturbances move through a dynamic space-time fabric - a concept known as 'field patterns'. If that sounds mind-achingly complex, it's because it is - we're in the realm of theoretical physics here, after all. But the basic concept isn't actually that bizarre. Field patterns, put very simply, break down space-time into a chessboard, like the one you ca...

Physicists say they've figured out how to 'see' inside a black hole What lies beyond the event horizon. Physicists have come up with a new way to predict what lies beyond the event horizon of a black hole, and it could give us a more accurate idea of their mysterious internal structures. Thanks  to the first  - and now  second  - direct observation of gravitational waves emanating from what scientists think are black hole mergers, we’re starting to get our first real evidence that black holes do actually exist in reality, not just theory. But even if we can prove they really do physically exist, there’s no getting around the fact that, thanks to their enormous gravitational pull, black holes swallow up anything that falls beyond their event horizon.  Not even light can escape the pull of a black hole, and that means no instrument on Earth, no matter how sophisticated, can visualise  what exactly is going on in there . Wormholes? Sin...

A five-dimensional black hole could 'break' general relativity, say physicists Uh oh... If you thought regular black holes were about as weird and mysterious as space gets, think again, because for the first time, physicists have successfully simulated what would happen to black holes in a five-dimensional world, and the way they behave could threaten our fundamental understanding of how the Universe works. The simulation has suggested that if our Universe is made up of five or more dimensions - something that scientists have struggled to confirm or disprove - Einstein's general theory of relativity, the foundation of modern physics, would be wrong. In other words, five-dimensional black holes would contain gravity so intense, the laws of physics as we know them would fall apart.  There's a lot to wrap your head around here, so let's start with the black holes themselves. In a five-dimensional universe, physicists have hypothesised that black holes...

Gravitational waves explained COSMIC SHAKE-UP   Colliding black holes send ripples through spacetime that can be detected on Earth. The Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory, or Advanced LIGO, which has detectors in Louisiana and Washington,  has directly observed these gravitational waves. NICOLLE RAGER FULLER Magazine issue:  Vol. 189, No. 5, March 5, 2016, p. 22 A century after Albert Einstein rewrote our understanding of space and time,  physicists have confirmed one of the most elusive predictions of his general theory of relativity . In another galaxy, a billion or so light-years away, two black holes collided, shaking the fabric of spacetime. Here on Earth, two giant detectors on opposite sides of the United States quivered as gravitational waves washed over them. After decades trying to directly detect the waves, the recently upgraded Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory, now known as...