It is a fact of the human condition that actions often contradict widely held notions and even principles. How many times have you heard the term ‘originality’ rhapsodized about in terms of the creative arts? One could easily believe that original ideas and approaches are the be all and end all of creative life and ought to be demanded of anyone and everyone even thinking about being involved with it. Anything short of true originality being considered second-rate. Yet Stephen King and Michael Bay are multi-millionaires, Guy Madden is thought of as a weirdo if thought of at all and Vincent Van Gogh, the man who basically created Post-Impressionism, was called ‘the mad dog’ and spat on in the street.

While they would like us to think differently and many will deny it to Judgment Day, scientists and the scientific method have been known to have a similar reputation for saying one thing (talking up the superiority of the scientific method and going on evidence) and doing another (laughing at and mocking any theory, not matter how fact-based, that does not fit the established line). Such was the case with the first researchers to suggest that dinosaurs were warm-blooded rather than cold-blooded, who were basically laughed out of the Royal Society, the skeletons left behind being far too ‘lizard-like’ for the creatures to be anything but giant lizards. An assumption evidenced by the fact the suffix ‘saurus’ is an Anglicization of the Greek word ‘sauros’ (‘lizard’).

Turns out the warm-blooders were right all along. Which could be fair enough. There was some evidence at the time but not enough to convince most of a ‘scientific’ disposition. Yet when a fallen meteorite, something else deemed to be ‘impossible’, was hand delivered to the Royal society, and they still refused to believe it.

A recent example of such posthumous vindication is Albert ‘Big Daddy’ Einstein. Believe it or not, there are those who challenged Einstein ‘theory’ back in his day and continued to challenge it and its predictions in this century. Brave but, ultimately, stupid. Every single one of his predictions based on his ‘theory’ has proven true, including Einstein’s 1916 conclusion about Gravitational Waves.

Catch a wave – Gravitational waves that is

According to Caltech’s LIGO Laboratory: “Gravitational waves are ‘ripples’ in the fabric of space-time caused by some of the most violent and energetic processes in the Universe.” It sounds odd to be sure. The sort of thing that might one day lead to inter-dimensional worm-holes if such a thing is, in fact, possible. Though as Mark Twain pointed out: “Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because fiction is obliged to stick to the possibilities; truth isn’t.” Gravitational Waves are such a phenomenon has actually been witnessed by researchers at MIT, caused by the collision of two black holes no less.

And this matters because …

Gravitational waves are the final proof needed to fully confirm the Theory of Relativity and to now take it out of ‘theory’ status. It is now simply a fact. It is also the last nail in the coffin of any doubts about whether Relativity is correct, making anyone who denies it now a counter-factual fool. Interesting how things work out.