One year ago, an international team of scientists detected the first direct evidence of gravitational waves. UT Austin astronomer Karl Gebhardt recently sat down with the Houston Chronicle's Kim McGuire to talk about his work, which focuses on both black holes and dark energy. He also reflected on the significance of the gravitational wave discovery.
For me, it's one of the top scientific discoveries of all times. There's evolution, DNA/RNA, general relativity. It's up there. I can't stress this enough: What we're doing with gravitational waves is interacting with space. We knew gravitational waves existed. We had measured those. But we've never interacted with space itself. It's a new way to interact with the fundamental component of the universe and where that will lead to...who knows? In a thousand years, they will be talking about the day it was announced. It's that important.
Karl Gebhardt
Read the full Q&A with Gebhardt: A UT astrophysics professor talks gravitational waves, black holes and the search for dark energy - Houston Chronicle, Feb. 10, 2017
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