Dinesh Kamath's Editorial 'A great achievement by Indian Scientists' that was published in Newsband

A great achievement by Indian Scientists

The ripples in space-time, known as gravitational waves, have been detected. This is a great moment for astronomy and for science as a whole. This will help give better understanding of the workings of the universe. It will also provide information about the evolution of galaxies and black holes.

These gravitational waves were captured by LIGO. This will help detect variations of the order of a thousandth of the diameter of a proton.

The best thing is that about 60 researchers from more than a dozen institutions in India were part of the over-1,000-strong army of scientists in the collaboration. Nearly 35 Indian scientists are co-authors of the landmark scientific paper that describes the results. The way to find the signal buried in the noise came from an Indian scientist. Similarly, the oscillation of cosmic bodies after a collision was predicted by an Indian scientist back in 1971.

Quick approval to construct the proposed Rs.1,260-crore gravitational wave observatory in India could help obtain unique information about the universe; since nothing can obstruct gravitational waves owing to which one can get information unobtainable with light.

It is undoubtedly the historical moment for entire world as well as Indian scientists. It is awesome discovery in the field of science. Indian scientists are at the forefront of discoveries in physics ranging from Higgs-Boson to gravitational waves. It is awesome that Einstein developed the theory from thought experiment without the benefit of sensors used in the laboratory like LIGO.

It is no doubt a marvellous finding of what Einstein predicted 1000 years ago. But how does it affect the common man. Will all the school books be rewritten eliminating Newtons Theorems etc. Rs.1260 crore project on GWO in India will help human in what way? What are the other implications of Einstein theory? What one person predicted 1000 years ago is now proved by 1000 persons. What was the world population 1000 years ago and what is the population now? What facility did Einstein have that day and what do we have now? It is a necessity to know more about the implications of proving Einstein's predictions. This would help the common man to understand better about the nature and that might help youngsters to better think scientifically rather than just study some books and copy them in exams. Kudos to all the 1000 scientists who worked on this great job!