There are times when the difference between Science and Science Fiction becomes too thin to be distinguishable. And, these are those Times.

Discovery of Gravitational Waves at LIGO (in a matter of days) has became very popular on social media. And, everybody is talking about it. But it caught my eye for a particular reason. This is also the central theme of my next SciFi book “The Exile of Mukunda”. I had this particular theme in mind for past 2 years. Without divulging much on the plot, lets talk about what these waves are or are supposed to be.

Suppose you are fast approaching a Binary Black-Hole (B-H) system constituting B-H A and B-H B. And you don’t want to get sucked into either of them. What would you do?

For beginner’s, a Binary Black-Hole system is a system where two black holes revolve around each other.And in our illustration let’s say they both are of equal mass and size.

Again, what would you do? If i were you, i would calculate the centre of gravity of the system and then sneak in at that exact location. thus making it impossible for both of the B-H to exert any gravitational pull on me.

Why would none of B-H be able to exert any gravitational pull, do the pulls cancel out? On first look it would look like that. Now let’s state another example. When the famous Apple fell on Newton, what was that apple trying to do? Hurt newton? Of course not.

Hit the ground? You would probably say so. On the surface of it, it seems so. Now let’s imagine that Sir Isaac Newton move a little and let us dig the surface (and examine the facts). Suppose, there is a 10 feet pit at the very spot where apple will fall. Now does that apple stop on the nonexistent surface or rushes towards the bottom of the pit? Now, lets make that pit a 1000 feet deep. And, then 10000 feet deep and so on.

Now tell me what is that apple up to (or in this case down to)?

The Apple in lack of any solid hinderance would always try rushing toward the centre of the earth or centre of Gravity of the Earth.

Back to our Binary B-H system. At the centre of gravity of the B-H system, gravitational forces are not cancelling out, rather they are not exerting themselves. I am already at the place where forces of Gravity wanted me to be.

This brings me to the latest discovery or confirmation of the existence of Gravitational Waves. The origin of which was coalescing or merging of two Black-Holes of a binary system. The ringdown (the readjustment of mass/energy of the newly formed system) then emitted massive Gravitational Waves in all directions (including the directions in which LIGO was sending its Laser-Beams).

Now, whether space-time distorting shockwaves emitted forth by Black-Hole system are indeed Gravitational Waves or are some sort of new way through which Universe stabilises big changes in centre of gravity, is yet to be seen (Atleast, I need more convincing). But if the space/distance between two stationary objects can fluctuate, we indeed have a lot to learn about The Universe.

P.S. – The web-Episodes of the second book in Maha Vishnu Trilogy – “The Exile of Mukunda (Beyond the Perceptible)” can be found on the Book Blog starting First week of March 2016.