Gravitational.Physics.-.Exploring.the.Structure.of.Space.and.Time..[].pdf

Committee on Gravitational PhysicsBoard on Physics and mission on Physical Sciences, Mathematics, and ApplicationsNational Research CouncilNATIONAL ACADEMY PRESSWashington, the Structure of Space and TimeCopyright ?2003 National Academy of Sciences. All rights otherwise indicated, all materials in this PDF File provided by the National Academies Press () for researchpurposes are copyrighted by the National Academy of Sciences. Distribution, posting, or copying is strictly prohibited withoutwritten permission of the for pakalnickas@ on Tue Jul 29 00:50:32 2003: The project that is the subject of this report was approved by the Governing Board of theNational Research Council, whose members are drawn from the councils of the National Academy ofSciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine. The members of mittee responsible for the report were chosen for their petences and with regard forappropriate project was supported by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration under GrantNo. NAG5-4120, the Department of Energy under Contract No. DE-FG02-97ER41051, and theNational Science Foundation under Grant No. PHY-9722102. Any opinions, findings, and conclu-sions or mendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarilyreflect the views of the cover: Gravitational waves are ripples in the curvature of space and time that propagate withthe speed of light through otherwise empty space. Mass in motion is the source of gravitational figure shows the predicted gravitational wave pattern from a pair of neutron stars or black holesspiraling inward toward a final merger. The figure shows one polarization of the waves as seen byobservers stationed throughout the plane of the orbit at the moment of final merger. The wavesmeasured far away were emitted during the earlie