20 17 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to three scientists who made outstanding contributions to the detection of gravitational waves. The three scientists are Rainer Weiss, Barry Barres and Jeep Thorne. They are all from the Laser Interference Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO) in the United States. This year's Nobel Prize was awarded not so much to these three scientists as to Einstein's prediction a hundred years ago.

1905, Einstein published five epoch-making papers, which influenced the progress of physics. At this point, Einstein made a blockbuster, and later generations also called 1905 Einstein's miracle year. Two of these papers are well-known. One established the theory of relativity, that is, the special theory of relativity, and the other laid the foundation for the old quantum theory, that is, the photoelectric effect. In fact, Einstein's brightest light is the theory of relativity. But fate is really playing tricks on people. Einstein didn't win the Nobel Prize for relativity, but he won the Nobel Prize for photoelectric effect, which also puzzled Einstein.

1905, Einstein published his special theory of relativity. He soon discovered that the special theory of relativity could not explain gravity perfectly, and it only applied to the inertial system.

19 15, Einstein completed the general theory of relativity, which was officially published the following year. General relativity explains the nature of gravity and predicts the existence of gravitational waves.

However, there is another very important prediction of general relativity that cannot be verified, and that is gravitational waves. Why are gravitational waves not observed until recent years? Because the gravitational wave coming to the earth is too small, I passed without paying attention! 20 15 the first gravitational wave observed by human beings came from the disturbance of double black holes with the mass of 29 times and 36 times that of the sun more than one billion years ago. In fact, the name gravitational wave is not perfect, because gravity is only the manifestation of space-time bending in general relativity, and the essence of gravitational wave is only the fluctuation of space. Just like water waves, inserting a wooden stick on the calm water and stirring it will still produce ripples. The task of detecting gravitational waves can only be completed after the development of precision instruments to a certain extent. Even if scientists in the last century had the heart to look for gravitational waves, they didn't have the strength to do it.

As we know, the two greatest achievements of physics in the last century are relativity and quantum mechanics, which are now the two cornerstones of modern physics. Researchers of quantum mechanics have won numerous Nobel Prizes, while researchers of relativity have never won any Nobel Prizes, including Einstein himself. This is not to say that relativity is unimportant, but that it is too advanced!