In 1965, engineer Gordon Moore made an important prediction on the development of semiconductor technologies, which later became known as “Law mura“. Moore noted that the number of transistors on microchips doubles approximately every two years, which leads to the exponential growth of computing power. This prediction became the basis of modern technological progress. However, such exponential growth is now observed not only in the field of microchips, but also in another, less known area – the development of technologies for detecting gravitational waves that allow studying black holes.
Black holes are objects formed during the collapse of massive stars, when gravity becomes so strong that nothing, even light, can leave their limits. These objects cannot be observed directly, but they create gravitational waves – fluctuations in space-time, which can be fixed using special devices. These waves arise when black holes move with acceleration, and especially powerful waves emit in the collision of two black holes. Such space events are the most important source of information about black holes and their properties.
Attempts to fix gravitational waves began back in the 1960s, at a time when Moore made his famous prediction. However, the first successful results appeared decades later. In 2015, scientists of the project ligo first discovered gravitational waves that arose as a result of the merger of black holes. This discovery was the most important breakthrough in astrophysics, confirming the existence of these waves, predicted by Albert Einstein as part of the general theory of relativity.
Since that moment, the technology for detecting gravitational waves has advanced significantly. If the creation of the first detector required several decades and more than a billion dollars, then since 2015 the development of this technology has accelerated, and now many more collisions of black holes have been recorded. To date, about 100 such events have been recorded, and scientists expect their number to grow exponentially in the coming decades.