Disclaimer: machine translated by DeepL which may contain errors.
Encyclopedia of Relativity and the Universe
Tadata Michimura (Assistant Professor, Department of Physics)
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In 2015, 100 years after Einstein published his theory of general relativity, gravitational waves were first detected by LIGO. To date, more than 50 gravitational wave events have been reported, revealing one after another a picture of the universe we never knew existed. The observed gravitational waves are in perfect agreement with the predictions of relativity, and no frayed edges have been found to date. We are amazed once again at the predictive power of relativity.
The Nobel Prize in Physics has been awarded in recent years in a number of related fields, including gravitational waves in 2017, cosmology in 2019, and black holes in 2020, indicating the high level of attention paid to this field. There are many exciting plans for the future, including the verification of polarization modes of gravitational waves by KAGRA, the observation of supermassive black holes by LISA, and the observation of primordial gravitational waves of inflationary origin by LiteBIRD. I am grateful for my good fortune to have been born in such a wonderful era.
This book is an encyclopedia of the increasingly fascinating field of relativity. It is interesting to note that the authors of the entries vary widely, and that some entries are quite fanatical in their explanations. I wrote my entry in 2016, but looking back on it now, I think I got carried away and wrote too much detail. In any case, each item is in the form of a few pages, so feel free to read it from the one you are interested in. Personally, I read the columns first. Each article is very interesting as you can see the personality of the author, and the encyclopedia is filled with passion for the study of relativity.
Published in Faculty of Science News, January 2021