{"page":"\u003clink rel=\"stylesheet\" href=\"https://lessonplanet.com/assets/packs/css/resources-c03aa079.css\" /\u003e\n\u003clink rel=\"stylesheet\" href=\"https://lessonplanet.com/assets/packs/css/lp_boclips_stylesheets-517835be.css\" media=\"all\" /\u003e\n\u003cdiv data-title='How Gravitational Waves May Reveal Secrets of the Big Bang' data-url='/boclips/videos/689566e28b3f8d9d4df8e32f' data-video-url='/boclips/videos/689566e28b3f8d9d4df8e32f' id='bo_player_modal'\u003e\n\u003cdiv class='boclips-resource-page modal-dialog panel-container'\u003e\n\u003cdiv class='react-notifications-root'\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv class='rp-header'\u003e\n\u003cdiv class='rp-type'\u003e\n\u003ci aria-hidden='true' class='fai fa-regular fa-circle-play'\u003e\u003c/i\u003e\nVideo\n\u003c/div\u003e\n\u003ch1 class='rp-title' id='video-title'\u003e\nHow Gravitational Waves May Reveal Secrets of the Big Bang\n\u003c/h1\u003e\n\u003cdiv class='rp-actions'\u003e\n\u003cdiv class='mr-1'\u003e\n\u003ca class=\"btn btn-success\" data-posthog-event=\"Signup: LP Signup Activity\" data-posthog-location=\"body_link_boclips\" data-remote=\"true\" href=\"/subscription/new\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cspan\u003eGet Free Access\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"\"\u003e for 10 Days\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e!\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/a\u003e\n\u003c/div\u003e\n\u003c/div\u003e\n\u003c/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv class='rp-body'\u003e\n\u003cdiv class='rp-info'\u003e\n\u003cdiv aria-label='Hide resource details' class='rp-hide-info' role='button' tabindex='0'\u003e\u0026times;\u003c/div\u003e\n\u003ci aria-label='Expand resource details' class='rp-expand-info fai fa-solid fa-up-right-and-down-left-from-center' role='button' tabindex='0'\u003e\u003c/i\u003e\n\u003ci aria-label='Compress resource details' class='rp-compress-info fai fa-solid fa-down-left-and-up-right-to-center' role='button' tabindex='0'\u003e\u003c/i\u003e\n\u003cdiv class='rp-rating'\u003e\n\u003cspan class='resource-pool'\u003e\n\u003cspan class='pool-label'\u003ePublisher:\u003c/span\u003e\n\u003cspan class='pool-name'\u003e\n\u003cspan class='text'\u003e\u003ca data-publisher-id=\"30356011\" href=\"/search?publisher_ids%5B%5D=30356011\"\u003eCurated Video\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\n\u003c/span\u003e\n\u003c/span\u003e\n\u003c/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv class='rp-description'\u003e\n\u003cspan class='short-description'\u003eSummary:The information that we know about the universe comes almost exclusively from the analysis of electromagnetic radiation. But there is only so much this light can reveal because there is an inherent barrier. The oldest light that...\u003c/span\u003e\n\u003cspan class='full-description hide'\u003eSummary:\u003cbr/\u003eThe information that we know about the universe comes almost exclusively from the analysis of electromagnetic radiation. But there is only so much this light can reveal because there is an inherent barrier. The oldest light that we can detect comes 380,000 years after the Big Bang - Cosmic Microwave background, or CMB. We don’t have access to information about the universe any earlier than 380,000 years after the big bang. \u003cbr/\u003e\u003cbr/\u003eBut light is not the only thing that can carry information. According to the latest cosmology models, there should be a gravitational wave background. This background would have occurred within the first second of the big bang so it would give us information that is almost as old as the big bang. It could reveal the secrets of creation.\u003cbr/\u003e\u003cbr/\u003eIf you were in a house near the beach and the sea was calm, you could conclude that the wind must be gentle. If you saw the waves becoming bigger, you could conclude that somewhere the wind must have picked up, because a storm far away can form strong waves which can travel very far. So, the reason for the high waves could be a storm far away, or there could be some strong wind nearby.  \u003cbr/\u003e\u003cbr/\u003eThis is analogous to how it is with gravitational waves. We cannot feel the reason for the gravitational waves, but knowing the principles of physics, we can get a good idea of what may have caused the waves. \u003cbr/\u003e\u003cbr/\u003eIf there was an earthquake at sea, some time later, a tsunami would hit the shore. In this case the wave tells us something very concrete. A huge and localized wave tells us that something catastrophic like an earthquake probably caused the tsunami.\u003cbr/\u003e\u003cbr/\u003eIf we carefully traced how the wave hit the shore in different places, then we could also get a good idea where the earthquake happened, just by considering the tsunami wave.\u003cbr/\u003e\u003cbr/\u003eThis is similar to what we currently do with gravitational waves. We are detecting the equivalent of tsunamis. These events could be the collision of two black holes for example, or two neutron stars forming a black hole. \u003cbr/\u003eOur current technology only allows us to detect these very strong – tsunami-equivalent signals. We can’t currently detect low intensity gravitational waves. \u003cbr/\u003e\u003cbr/\u003eAny accelerating mass will create gravitational waves because mass affects spacetime. Even a moving car will create too much background gravitational wave noise for us to detect very faint gravitational signals. So only very strong waves can be detected. A faint signal equivalent to the calm ocean waves.\u003cbr/\u003e\u003cbr/\u003eWe use a laser interferometer to detect gravitational waves. You take a laser, then you shoot it through a beam splitter that splits the laser beam into two equal half beams. Then you send each of these beams away from each other at a 90-degree angle. After having them travel the same length, a mirror reflects the beam back through the beam splitter. This unites the two half beams, and sends them into a photodetector which measures any phase shift. A Gravitational wave stretches and contracts space time, so, the two half beams will get stretched or contracted. So when the beams reunite at the detector, they will be slightly out of phase.\u003cbr/\u003e\u003cbr/\u003eGravitational waves are believed to have been formed within the first second of the Big Bang. How? One way they would have formed is when the combined electroweak force broke apart into the two separate forces we see today - the electromagnetic force and weak force. This would have happened within fractions of a second after the big bang.\u003cbr/\u003e#gravitywaves\u003cbr/\u003e#bigbang\u003cbr/\u003eIt’s when the Higgs field transitioned into a non-zero minimum and became massive. This caused the fundamental particles to gain mass through their interaction with the Higgs potential. This change from massless to massive fundamental particles could cause gravitational waves. \u003cbr/\u003e\u003cbr/\u003eThese waves also could have formed during the process of cosmic inflation when the universe expanded exponentially during the first fractions of a second of after the Big Bang, from an infinitesimally small point to about the size of a large orange. \u003cbr/\u003e\u003cbr/\u003eSo detecting the gravitational waves from this era would give us insights about the early universe that we could never hope to obtain from the CMB. It’s not certain what we would see, but we could expect to see clues leading to new physics.\u003c/span\u003e\n\u003c/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv class='action-container flex justify-between'\u003e\n\u003cbutton aria-expanded='false' aria-label='Read more description' class='rp-full-description' type='button'\u003e\n\u003ci class='fai fa-solid fa-align-left'\u003e\u003c/i\u003e\n\u003cspan id='read_more'\u003eRead More\u003c/span\u003e\n\u003c/button\u003e\n\u003cdiv class='rp-report'\u003e\n\u003c/div\u003e\n\u003c/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv aria-labelledby='resource-details-heading' class='rp-info-section'\u003e\n\u003ch2 class='title' id='resource-details-heading'\u003eResource Details\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cdiv class='rp-resource-details clearfix'\u003e\n\u003cdiv class='detail'\u003e\n\u003cdl\u003e\n\u003cdt\u003eCurator Rating\u003c/dt\u003e\n\u003cdd\u003e\u003cspan class=\"star-rating\" aria-label=\"4.0 out of 5 stars\" role=\"img\"\u003e\u003ci class=\"fa-solid fa-star text-action\" 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