Norman Hairston received the same Feb. 11 email like every other graduate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
It came from the MIT president, alerting alum around the world to tune into a live news feed for a huge announcement that day.
“They’ve never done that before,” said Hairston, a 58-year-old MIT graduate who lives in Gary. “This was 100 years in the making. It was a big deal.”
The big deal jolted the science world with news that, for the first time ever, scientists had directly detected gravitational waves, something predicted by physicist Albert Einstein 100 years earlier.
The monumental discovery was the final and most difficult test of Einstein’s general theory of relativity, and it confirmed he was, without doubt, a genius. The news validated one of the most fundamental theories in the field of physics while also promising to revolutionize the field of astronomy. It was that big.
“The detection of gravity waves was the last little bit of general relativity that had yet to be actually observed,” said Hairston, a West Side High School graduate. “Being able to detect gravity waves means that the new generation of telescopes – including the James Webb, the super-duper version of the Hubble – can be alerted to celestial events and pointed in that direction as they happen.”
It was major groundbreaking news that media outlets around the world splashed on their front pages.
Did you read it? I didn’t either. But why? Too lofty of subject matter? Zero relevance to our daily lives? Too much science-babble to understand?
“Probably most readers did not read it and, even those who did, the story does not really describe what happened,” said Hairston, who also earned a MBA from Stanford University. “Much of the general public’s non-comprehension of science stems from never having been introduced to basic science, scientific methods, or the stories around it.”
This is so true. Our collective ignorance of science has kept many of us in the dark about such breakthroughs, including this latest one. I’m as guilty as the next guy, knowing very little about how science affects my daily life.
Yes, I’m aware that my smart phone, for example, essentially holds modern science in my hand. Still, I know practically nothing about the technology behind it. And I’m too lazy to try to figure it out. I start caring only when my high-tech devices stop working.
This latest breakthrough – the discovery of gravity waves, described as bizarre ripples in the space-time continuum – is a perfect example of our ignorance and apathy. It’s also the perfect opportunity to change our ways and educate ourselves, even if it lasts for just a nanosecond.
“The ability to detect gravity waves is a real big deal, and it is hard to underestimate the new discoveries it will enable,” Hairston told me. “Developing of the instrument that detected the gravity waves is on par with development of the telescope.”
Think of that for a second – on par with the development of the telescope. Let its magnitude sink in before reading another line or turning the page.
“This is one of the great events in science from the last 100 years,” Hairston said. “Yet the headline did not describe the event, and much of the text in the story was about the most minor aspect of the discovery – someone converting the gravity wave that was intercepted into a sound analog.”
These gravitational waves carry information about their source of origin, so detecting these “weird undulations,” as they’ve been called, will now allow scientists to study distant features of the universe, experts say.
In other words, it will be the “new astronomy” of this century, opening a broad new window to better view our universe. Think of it as constructing a spacious skylight in the roof of your home to better see the stars at night.
“We are now in an era where we can produce pictures of planets orbiting other stars,” Hairston said. “The pictures are just fuzzy dots, like our pictures of Pluto until a few months ago. Being able to detect gravity waves… in real time when the light from a supernova is just reaching Earth, we will now be able to take video of these events.”
Hairston previously worked for Corning Glass in optical communications, LCD glass and advanced materials, among other high-tech companies. These days, he does consultant work in new business development for companies making advanced materials.
Through the years, he has contacted me about other scientific or lofty subjects, often writing pages of information and insights for me to sift through. Something rang true with his latest missive about this topic. I knew he was right. I could barely read past the third paragraph in that story before my eyes glazed over and my mind wandered.
With most stories, I asked myself, how does this affect my life?
“Sometimes people hear about these great scientific discoveries and view them as something remote from their everyday lives,” Hairston said. “However, it relies on the same principles that engineers use every day to make consumer goods, such as smartphones. And there are other applications of laser interferometry, including the laser tape measures you can buy at the hardware store for $25.”
Hairston is referring to the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory, or LIGO, the mammoth machine that’s 40 years and $1 billion in the making. It’s a 2.5-mile by 2.5-mile version of a table-sized scientific instrument that detects a gravitational wave change of only one ten-thousandth the diameter of a proton, one of the particles of an atom.
“It is the accuracy that enables writing five billion transistors on a thumbnail-sized silicon chip,” Hairston said. “This amount of computing power enables your smartphone to have previously unthinkable capabilities, such as the ability to understand you when you talk to it.”
OK, now you’re talking in a language I can easily understand. And something I care about.
“The thing that is important about this discovery is that sometimes the availability of a new tool is more important than the first discovery you make with that tool,” Hairston said.
The science community agrees that catching these waves will allow researchers to probe dimensions that were once believed to be only science fiction.
“It is all a much bigger deal than a story on page 14,” Hairston said.
Twitter @jdavich
