The ancient Greek philosopher Pythagoras knew his way around a right triangle and proved it with his Pythagorean Theorem, which even today, is well known to every student of geometry. Harder to prove was his notion of the "Music of the Spheres," a theory suggesting that planets harmonize as they orbit in the heavens. But now, we learn that Apollo astronauts did claim to hear music from the far side of the moon. While not proof, it is an intriguing suggestion that the old genius was on to something. The prescient Pythagoras said nothing about what black holes do in space. Maybe because they hadn't been discovered yet.
That hasn't changed.
But wait a second, you might say. Didn't scientists just gleefully announce the detection of gravitational waves as two black holes merged? And that's two black holes, not just one. Isn't that like double proof that black holes actually exist, and have, in fact, been discovered? And at a cost of a mere 1.1 billion dollars?
Considering all that scientists achieved, wasn't it worth it to pour over a billion dollars into two black holes? Especially since no one ever detected even one black hole after over fifty years of searching?
Well, what exactly did scientists achieve? Did they get exceptionally clear photographs of the heavenly union? Of course not. Black holes are invisible, and, in fact, may exist only in the minds of imaginative astro-physicists.
What scientists at the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory achieved was, "...ripples in the fabric of space-time called gravitational waves..."
Ripples. Really?
For over a billion dollars, scientists felt the earth move, but just barely. And only with their technologically advanced equipment. Ordinary mortals missed the event entirely. We have to take the word of scientists for what happened--and, if it happened, we have to take their word for what it meant.
But why did these barely perceptible--and possibly anomalous--ripples matter?
Because matter matters. And energy. And because Alfred Einstein matters. The world of science worships him and refuses to let go, even though his General Theory of Relativity--theory, mind you--has been impossible to prove during about a hundred years of trying.
In Einstein's theory, the Universe is an enormous geometric "fabric" in which time and space are one inseparable entity, existing as in the sphere of the Universe. All that is, all that ever was, all that ever will be, exists now, and can actually be accessed by scientists. It is this theory, this hypothesis, this lovely concept that allows advanced and specially-equipped telescopes to supposedly travel back in the space-time continuum to capture the death of stars from billions of years ago. But what are they capturing? To call dying stars Supernovas sounds impressive, but, in reality, what is seen is nothing more than flashes of light. And the dimmer the flash, the farther back in space-time it is.
Or is it? Infra-red images are colorful, but they are proof only of a camera's ability to capture pictures of light. Even though some scientists hope to hop on the space-time continuum and travel back twelve billion years to witness the creation of the Universe at the Big Bang, that explosive event remains only a theory which other scientists dispute.
However Einstein's Universe was created, his theory of space-time was problematic. The hypothesis that matter caused warps, or distortions, in the fabric of the continuum could not be proved.
In the mid-20th century, the scientific community came up with the concept of black holes, which are created, it was theorized, as stars or planets collapse into themselves and disappear from the continuum. This disappearance, along with the disappearance of its "warp" from the continuum, causes gravitational ripples which travel through the earth.
This "ripple" hypothesis, based on the "black hole" hypothesis, based on the "warp" hypothesis, based on the "space-time continuum" hypothesis is what science spent 1.1. billion dollars to prove. If every hypothesis was proved, Einstein's theory would appear in a better light. But none of it was proved. Einstein's theory remains a theory. Maybe he wasn't such an Einstein after all. He certainly wasn't a Pythagoras.
