UofGcomms/ Chris JamesHundreds of scientists are to take part in the debut of a new Scottish country dance inspired by the ripples in spacetime first theorised by Albert Einstein.
Researchers from the University of Glasgow teamed up with the culture and research organisation Science Ceilidh to develop a dance to mark the 10th anniversary of the historic first detection of gravitational waves – a groundbreaking discovery which established a new field of astronomy.
The dance will be premiered next week at the joint GR–Amaldi meeting, an international science conference which will be held at Glasgow’s Scottish Exhibition Centre between Monday July 14 and Friday July 18.
The event’s organisers expect many of the conference’s more than 800 delegates, who are researchers and educators from around the world, to participate in the first large-scale performance of the dance at a ceilidh on Thursday July 17.
The dance has been developed to creatively represent the gravitational-wave signals measured by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO), as well as the black holes that create them.
The first observation of gravitational waves was made by LIGO on September 14 2015. The gravitational-wave signal – a ripple in spacetime – had originated from the merger of two black holes, each about 30 times the mass of our Sun, to form a black hole of about 60 times the mass of our Sun. LIGO’s detection provided the first direct observation of gravitational waves almost a century after Einstein predicted their properties in his general theory of relativity.
The detection inaugurated the field of gravitational-wave astronomy, which uses extremely sensitive detectors to measure the miniscule ripples in spacetime. Sophisticated analysis of gravitational-wave signals enables astronomers to make observations of cosmic events that are not possible with conventional telescopes.
UofGcomms/ Chris JamesThe September 14 2015 discovery was the first-ever observation of two black holes orbiting each other, but astronomers have now observed hundreds of such sources.
As the field has progressed, the USA-based LIGO has been joined by gravitational-wave observatories in Europe (Virgo) and Japan (KAGRA). The LIGO–Virgo–KAGRA observatory network are currently in their fourth observing run, due to finish in November of this year.
University of Glasgow researchers made leading contributions to the UK’s role in the LIGO Scientific Collaboration, developing the delicate mirror suspensions which made the detection possible, and have played key roles in data analysis and detector design improvements.
Dr Christopher Berry from the University of Glasgow’s School of Physics and Astronomy is chair of the conference’s local organising committee.
He said: “We are delighted to host the GR–Amaldi conference here in Glasgow during the tenth anniversary year of the revolutionary first observation of gravitational waves.
“Glasgow physicists and astronomers have been pioneering gravitational research since the 1960s, and we are excited to continue to play key roles in this international field of research. The last ten years have completely revolutionised our understanding of black holes.
“It felt right to welcome our visitors to the city with a traditional Scottish dance, and to give it a cosmic twist inspired by the research that unites us. It’s been fantastic to work with Science Ceilidh to develop this dance, and we’re excited to welcome hundreds of our colleagues to enjoy it with us next week. I hope they take away not just happy memories of the conference, but a uniquely Scottish way of communicating our research.”
The dance was developed through workshop sessions between Glasgow physicists and the Science Ceilidh team. The dance represents the life-cycle of black holes and how they form orbiting pairs before finally colliding to create, in just a few seconds, the signal detected on Earth.
At the climax of the dance, participants are encouraged to let out a celebratory ‘whoop’ which represents what astrophysicists call the ringdown. That is the final stage of a binary black hole merger which ‘rings’ spacetime like a bell and sends out the ripples which make detection possible on Earth.
Lewis Hou, Science Ceilidh’s director, guided the development of the dance. He said: “Working with University of Glasgow researchers on developing this dance has been a fantastic experience. I’ve learned a lot about gravitational waves in our workshop sessions, where we gave a lot of thought to how we could represent gravitational waves creatively.
“What we’ve ended up with is a dance which is great fun to perform but has a real basis in science. It represents the process of black hole coalescence through dance, inspired by how black holes interact, pair up, get closer to each other and finally merge.
“Our plan once the ceilidh has been performed for the first time at GR–Amaldi is to take it on the road and to continue to develop it with educators, youth workers and local youth groups to help young people understand gravitational waves through dance and bring their own creativity and curiosity to build on it.”
The GR–Amaldi Meeting’s full title is the 24th International Conference on General Relativity and Gravitation (GR) and the 16th Edoardo Amaldi Conference on Gravitational Waves (Amaldi). The GR meeting is held every three years, and the Amaldi meeting is held every two years, and they are held together every six years.
Getty ImagesThis is the first time the joint GR–Amaldi meeting has been held in the UK. The meeting organisation is being led by the University of Glasgow and the Institute of Physics.
The event brings together international experts in classical and quantum gravity, mathematical and applied relativity, gravitational-wave instrumentation and data-analysis, multimessenger astronomy, relativistic astrophysics and cosmology.
This year’s meeting also includes a series of public events, including lectures from Star Trek science consultant Dr Erin MacDonald on July 13 and Professor Carole Mundell, the European Space Agency’s director of science on Wednesday July 16 and a science and art exhibition with pieces contributed by scientists to represent their own work. The Institute of Physics Scotland is also supporting Science Ceilidh to work with a local youth group to further develop the dance, and document it for use by other educators.
An Early Career Workshop in advance of the main conference will run between July 10 and July 12. A Wikipedia Edit-A-Thon on 13th July will aim to improve the quality of pages related to topics of the meeting, with a focus on making biographies for women scientists to reflect the gender balance of the field.
Professor Sir Keith Burnett, President of the Institute of Physics said: “The Institute of Physics is proud to support this event which brings together experts from across the globe. It is an exciting year for science, as we meet in Glasgow to celebrate the milestone anniversary of the first observation of gravitational waves. Truly remarkable.”
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