WS MoreOrLess: Gravitational Waves
More or Less
BBC
4.6 • 3.7K Ratings
🗓️ 18 January 2016
⏱️ 10 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
One of our 2015 ‘Numbers of the Year’ predictions might have come to pass. There is great excitement over rumours that one of the predictions Einstein made in his theory of General Relativity has finally been observed. But it’s not the first time it’s been reported that ‘gravitational waves’ have been discovered, and the last time proved to be an equipment test.
What is the total number of possible tweets that could be created from 140 characters? In a recent programme Professor John Allen-Paulos told us that when you take into account all of the symbols available, the total number of possible tweets is Googol^2.8 (which is a 1 followed by 280 zeros.) But has he missed some options?
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, this is a download of the shorter world service edition of More or Less, and if |
| 0:05.3 | you're a loyal podcast listener and you've listened to the Radio 4 version, you will |
| 0:09.7 | already have heard both of the items in today's program. |
| 0:13.7 | Sorry about that, although you can always take this opportunity to listen to them again. |
| 0:18.5 | Thank you for downloading from the BBC. |
| 0:21.3 | The details of our complete range of podcasts and our terms of use go to BBCWorldService.com |
| 0:27.6 | Hello and welcome to More or Less on the BBC World Service with me, Tim Halfard. |
| 0:35.2 | Later we'll be looking at probably the biggest mistake in More or Less history. |
| 0:40.0 | But first, rumors have been flying around on social media that one of the big |
| 0:44.3 | questions for physicists has been answered. At the end of last year, researchers launched |
| 0:49.2 | an experiment to try to spot gravitational waves, which were predicted by Einstein's |
| 0:54.4 | general theory of relativity. Dr Andrew Ponson from University College London told us about |
| 1:00.1 | the research in one of our recent programs about the numbers of the year. As the room is intensified, |
| 1:05.7 | we invited him back to tell us what all the excitement is about. |
| 1:09.8 | If the rumors are to be believed and that is a big if, then an instrument called Advanced Ligo |
| 1:16.0 | that came online late last year has detected gravitational waves. What are gravitational waves? |
| 1:23.4 | Gravitational waves are a prediction of Einstein who said that in addition to gravity, as we know it, |
| 1:30.2 | the thing that keeps us glued here on the Earth's surface and the planets going round, the sun and so on, |
| 1:36.1 | there should also be gravitational waves, which are essentially ripples in the fabric of space itself. |
| 1:43.6 | And it's really sort of the distinctive thumbprint, if you like, of his theory. But they're so tiny |
| 1:50.0 | that Einstein himself didn't believe they could ever actually be detected. |
| 1:54.8 | So just trying to understand this, this would be things almost changing size because of some |
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