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Showing posts from December, 2017

How Do the LIGO Detectors Work? How are Gravitational Waves Detected?

What you see above are the instruments that created history on 14 September 2015. In a Galaxy far far away, Billion years ago 2 Black-Holes were locked into a dance till they united as one and all we hear are ripples it created in Space-time. To hear these ripples all that was needed were the most sensitive and precise instrument on Earth that was conceptualized nearly 5 decade ago by Rainer Weiss and Kip Thorne. After constant perseverance they finally got approval for funding in 1994 by the NSF (National Science Foundation),Construction neared completion in 1997 and the detectors went online in 2002. From 2002–10 the detectors failed to register any Gravitational waves! The detectors were then upgraded from 2010–15 and new and more sensitive detectors called the Advanced-LIGO came into existence that detected the first Gravitational wave GW150814. What looked like an instant shot to fame was actually years of perseverance and confidence of both Scientists and

How this small city in Gujarat shunned Caste -Based Vote Bank politics

Bhavnagar City has a history where each election till date has been fought on the lines of caste. This is owing to the large majority of Koli Community in the city constituting 45% of the electorate. Congress and BJP are the only two major front runners in any election here and strong independent candidates or third fronts are mostly absent. Owing to strong unity and caste identity among the Koli community it was virtually considered impossible for a non – Koli candidate to win irrespective of their party affiliation or Public image if pitted against a member of Koli community. Thus both parties would either pit a Koli candidate or refrain from it in unison each time. Whenever this pattern was broken the the non Koli candidate has always been punished. During the 2012 Gujarat General assembly elections the Congress heavyweight and leader of opposition Shaktisinh Gohil lost in Bhavnagar Rural constituency against Koli candidate. It is due to this massive majority