For those who aren’t really aware of the gravity wave, let us primarily find out the definition of it. Whenever the two forces, namely buoyant force or the gravitational force try to re-establish equilibrium, gravity waves are generated in the interface of the two media or in the fluid medium. So, a gravity wave is said to occur when there is a displacement in equilibrium. In the Earths atmosphere, gravity waves are said to be responsible for transfer of momentum from the troposphere to the mesosphere and stratosphere. Now, scientists have been trying to hunt this gravity wave radiation for more than half a century.

1915 – In November this year, Einstein discovered a new way to look at gravity workings across the universe. This new view of gravity was called general relativity and it further predicted the existence of gravity waves or gravitational waves as known during those times. Einstein had already predicted then that movement of the masses caused gravitational radiations. He also mentioned the same in his papers that were published in 1916 and 1918 that the gravity waves would not travel in the similar pattern as the way light does, instead they would ripple like tremors or quakes in the space time.
There was a lot of debate on the existence of the gravity waves and many doubted their existence. But, the answer to this question came along when Joseph Weber of University of Maryland in College Park decided to build a detector for detection of gravity waves.

THE GRAVITY DETECTOR DEVICE
Weber create this gravity wave detector with the help of a large aluminum cylinder. The solid bar of approximately equivalent to 50 gallon hot water tank usually used in homes. He then deployed sensors around the bar as he found out that when the waves would pass from there, the bar would definitely resonate like a bell. The sensors would help in capturing these waves by converting the shaking into electrical signals, further recording the same on a paper graph.

He also used two detected which very installed at two separate locations hundreds of kilometers away from each other. But, it was the year 1969 when he announced to the public about recording a signal simultaneously on both the devices that he had installed in Maryland and Chicago. He further announced that the signals were said to be coming from the centre of the Milky way galaxy, from some supernova that went off or from neutron stars. This announcement was applauded while newspapers flashed with news of it as an extraordinary accomplishment. Some some groups even build their own new detectors hastily but weren’t able to record anything at all. Later on many of the countries in the world create their own detectors, larger than that of Weber and modifications in the original design but with no results.

But, Weber was stern by his word that he had recorded waves until his death in 2000. Today physicists do suspect that Weber’s system had picked up some internal noises of the bars and not gravity waves.

Having said that, gravity waves were discovered many years after Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO) detector was build in 1994. It was a super expensive project costing over 300 million but US Congress finally agreed to fund it after the supported convinced it. While the first one was build in 1994, the upgraded hardware was added from 2010 to 2015. Once it was upgraded into a higher version it immediately detected gravity wave. Now, other detectors are also joining the LIGO quest as it is known to be a achievement that can be considered very much similar to that of Galileo’s first discovery of space through his telescope in 1609, but there is definitely more to come in form of picking up rumbles of the first nanosecond of creation, to name one.

Rajarajeswari College of Engineering, Bangalore. Department of Physics was started in the year 2006 have highly qualified faculty members with ample experience from Academics and Research.

*source from internet