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NEW VIDEO: The Absurdity of Gravitational Wave Detection (Patreon)

Published:
2017-01-05 16:18:05
Imported:
2026-06
Tags:

Content

Last year I got up close with a working 1:100 scale version of LIGO, the gravitational wave detector that made the first discovery of G-waves. In an interview with Caltech Prof Rana Adhikari, I found out about the absurd physics required to make the detection - this is what fascinated me, laser power that could vaporize your head, the smoothest mirrors ever created, measuring wiggles one thousandth of the width of a proton! I've spent the last week combing through four hours of footage for the best bits.

BONUS VIDEO: On the personal side, I got to hear how scientists and in particular how Prof Adhikari felt about the first detection - when he found out, what he thought, and what it made him feel after nearly 20 years searching for this signal. He was much more chill than I expected: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ViMnGgn87dg

Files

The Absurdity of Detecting Gravitational Waves

A head-vaporizing laser with a perfect wavelength detecting sub-proton space-time ripples. Support Veritasium on Patreon: http://bit.ly/VePatreon Thanks to Prof Rana Adhikari and LIGO: http://ligo.org Thanks to Patreon supporters: Nathan Hansen, Donal Botkin, Tony Fadell, Saeed Alghamdi, Zach Mueller, Ron Neal A lot of videos have covered the general overview of the discovery of gravitational waves, what they are, the history of the search, when they were found but I wanted to delve into the absurd science that made the detection possible.

Comments

Mirko K.

Such a good video. I loved it. It didn't just scratch on the surface, it actually went into detail. Without losing the view for the bigger picture and how incredible this all is. Amazing work! Thank you Derek.

Steve Ruis

Please, please, please Derek, stop using lame ass atom models in your otherwise brilliant videos. The "hydrogen atom" you portrayed had an orbiting blob around a nucleus. If one presumes that blob is supposedly representative of an electron (a poor one at that), what was the red circle supposed to represent? The electron cloud? Hello, the electron is the electron cloud, there is nothing else. Plus electrons are not orbiting the nucleus. We established that 100 years ago, but we continue to mislead the lay public with truly awful illustrations.

Mehrad Mahmoudian

loved the part that Rana says "I wish more people would ask this question". this (you who are asking and him that is answering) are the true scientists. Asking questions and paying attention to them is half way towards solution. Thank you both.