The idea that gravitational waves exist might have been first proposed by Albert Einstein, but the notion that they could actually be physically detected, began in Cambridge, says MIT physics professor Nergis Mavalvala.
“The idea was conceived at MIT, so this is really a true MIT Story. This is a place where you ask impossible questions and then you make it possible to answer them,” says Mavalvala.
While the observatories where the discovery was made are located in Louisiana and Washington State, the project itself was proposed and developed jointly by MIT and Caltech. And MIT scientists, including Mavalvala, have been involved in every aspect of the search; in particular, building the instruments that detected the gravitational waves.
“So we do research in our group here on how to make better detectors and then we actually go to the observatories and try out our ideas,” Mavalvala explains.
Scientists say that todays announcement opens up an entirely new field of physics. And Mavalvala says that means the work at MIT is just beginning:
“The long road is still ahead of making better detectors and starting to listen to richer sounds from the universe.”
