![]() He devoted the final chapters to 'wormholes', 'spiral galaxies' and, perhaps most controversial, 'superstring theory' Welcome to Stephen Hawking and his universe. ![]() The mind-dizzying scale of this data only begins to come into focus when you remember that just one light year is approximately 5.88 trillion miles. This, in simple language, was the wider significance of the moment – an astronomical “first” – when the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (Ligo) announced that a signal from gravitational waves had been discovered emanating from the collision and merger of two massive black holes (collapsed stars) more than a billion light years away. ![]() In the words of the New York Times, “a minuscule jiggle, discovered in an exotic physics experiment” saw two teams of American scientists, in collaboration with British and German partners, overcome almost insurmountable odds “to open a vast new window on the cosmos”. ![]()
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