gravity wave
1
8.8
- noun
- Specialized
:
onda gravitacional
- What makes gravity waves so weak that an entire star's collapse can yield no detectable gravity wave?
- primordial gravity waves
- produce gravity waves
- gravity-wave astronomy
So when you're things within the pre-existing space can generate gravity waves, but space itself expands.
- So when you're things within the pre-existing space can generate gravity waves, but space itself expands.
Examples
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For Grishchuk, primordial gravity waves remain the great goal of gravity-wave astronomy, but other astrophysicists will settle for more modest results.
Academic text (1991) -
Because these motions are so small, we have yet to detect a single gravity wave with certainty.
Academic text (1991) -
What are the other sources of gravity waves, and how strong are the waves that they produce?
Academic text (1991) -
In order to understand Grishchuk's passion, one must therefore begin by understanding gravity waves.
Academic text (1991) -
If that is so, the primordial gravity waves might be strong enough to detect today.
Academic text (1991) -
Thorne's interest in gravity waves took him repeatedly to Moscow during the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Academic text (1991) -
But although gravity waves produce analogous motions, these motions are tiny, almost beyond imagining.
Academic text (1991) -
Though Grishchuk had not previously been much interested in gravity waves, this discovery caused Grishchuk's interests to converge with Kip Thorne's.
Academic text (1991) -
Scientists finally confirmed the existence of gravity waves after decades of research.
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The recent discovery of gravity waves has opened new avenues for understanding the universe.
Synonyms
4
7.2
A ripple in space and time made by very strong events like colliding black holes
Surface Forms
Morphology
The compound is compositionally built from 'gravity' (force/field) + 'wave' (a propagating disturbance), so a B1 learner who knows both words can infer it denotes a wave related to gravity. While full scientific details (propagation at light speed, field fluctuations) require specialist knowledge, the core idea 'a wave involving gravity' is directly derivable and cross-linguistically transparent.
Etymology
The term gravity wave comes from a simple picture: imagine dropping a stone in a pond and watching the water make waves, while changes in gravity make 'ripples' in space. So a gravity wave is a ripple in gravity that moves through space and tells us about big events like two black holes colliding.