Gravity – making waves

There has recently been exciting news in the scientific community with the successful detection of gravitational waves at the purpose built Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) in the US.[i]

What are gravitational waves?

When we throw a rock into the pond, we watch the ripples expand ever outwards as the matter within the pond rhythmically responds to the rock entering the pond, adjusting to the new reality. Similarly, gravitational waves are caused when objects with strong gravitational force accelerate – ripples of space expand outwards, but they do so a little quicker than ripples in our pond; they move at the speed of light.

So, what are the ripples in space travelling through?

There is a common perception that space is empty, a void, a vacuum. But this is not true. For space to be able to have a ripple or gravitational wave pass through it there must be matter in it, it simply cannot be empty. This matter must have a quality through which energy can move, for energy cannot be transmitted through nothing.

But back to the physicists at LIGO in the US

The announcement that gravitational waves had been detected was based on a recording of the convergence of two massive black holes that occurred approximately 1.3 billion years ago. So not only did they detect gravitational waves, but they brought to an end the debate as to whether or not black holes exist.

This is the first accredited recording of gravitational waves, with over 1,000 physicists involved in the process. This is an extraordinary achievement, but Albert Einstein predicted the existence of gravitational waves over 100 years ago with his general theory of relativity. In this theory, Einstein explained gravity as the warping of space-time by mass or energy.

So it has taken us 100 years, thousands of physicists and who knows how many billions of dollars to come up with tangible evidence of the truth of Einstein’s theory. We could have just given Einstein the benefit of the doubt, but that is not how modern science works!

There is an even grander detection system planned to go live in 2028, being a one-million-kilometre-wide space antenna involving three space vehicles orbiting the sun in a triangular formation. This system is looking for frequencies of about one cycle per hour. This low frequency is expected from large-scale black holes, noting the enormous mass they cram into so little space. Imagine the force needed to make this mass move – that’s why it can only cycle once per hour. To give this some context, imagine a doctor listening for a heartbeat and it only beats once per hour, but the doctor is on the moon and the heart is on the earth – no simple task.

Let’s explore space in more detail

Space has a frequency, a vibration, and the higher its frequency becomes, the more still space is. Picture a hummingbird, a very tiny but graceful bird, flapping its wings at a very fast rate to provide a most delicate and beautiful stillness to hover at a flower. Space is a little like this – vibrating at a phenomenal rate to hold itself, and everything in it, including us.

We can go deeper into outer and inner space: Let's start on the macro scale first. We think that the earth is pretty massive but the sun weighs 333,000 times that of earth, and that is just our star; what about all the other billions of stars in our known universe? The big question is – what holds it all together? The answer is – space. Surely that makes space the most powerful force in the universe? And all that matter (planets, moons, suns, stars, galaxies) takes up but a tiny part of the whole and all that vast blackness in between –– that is space!

Now let’s look at the micro scale. If we were to look at a single atom of hydrogen, we find that there is ~99.99996% space. Once again, this space is not empty. Within each atom there is an energetic field that keeps it all together, it is filled with a vibration, an energy. This aligns beautifully with the science that everything is energy – and the equally valid extension to this by Serge Benhayon that –

"If everything is energy, therefore, everything is because of it."

Serge Benhayon Time of the 3-part series ‘Time, Space and all of us,’ pg 177

At the atomic level, nothing is solid. Everything we thought was solid is largely made of space. If everything we know as being solid is largely made up of space, how does this change the way we see and experience the world? We have come to rely solely on our physical senses, and on this material world, but it turns out that this is not as reassuringly solid as we thought it was!

Space permeates everything in our known universe, inside and out. Everything is surrounded by space and everything is largely filled with space. As everything is energy, is space the conduit for all energy? And if so, what type of energy is space filled with?


Reference

  • [i]

    https://www.ligo.caltech.edu/

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