1. The waves were observed in a signal emanating from the collision of two massive black holes. The signal was called GW150914, for “Gravitational Wave, 2015, 9th month, day 14”.
2. Until Copernicus and Galileo, the Earth was considered the centre of the Universe, which explained why things dropped to the ground.
3. In 1687, Newton’s Theory of Gravitation explained the orbits of planets around the Sun.
4. He stated that every particle attracts every other with a force directly proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them.
5. Before Newton, gravity just meant serious or weighty, the quality of being grave.
6. The orbit of Mercury around the Sun could not be explained by Newton’s Law of Gravity.
7. Einstein’s theory of relativity helped explain it by predicting the bending of light by gravity.
8. Einstein also predicted “gravitational waves” carrying the energy of gravity at the speed of light.
9. Rainer Weiss, Kip Thorne and Barry Barish won a Nobel Prize in 2017 for confirming these waves.
10. “Gravitation cannot be held responsible for falling in love.” (Albert Einstein).