[FPSPACE] Eanna Flanagan hunts down gravity waves -- ripples in 'spacetime' -- in quest to

[LARRY KLAES]

April 14, 2006

Eanna Flanagan hunts down gravity waves -- ripples in 'spacetime' -- in 
quest to better understand the universe

By Thomas Oberst

Gravity is a familiar force. It's the reason for fear of heights. It holds 
the moon to the Earth, the Earth to the sun. It keeps beer from floating out 
of our glasses.

But how? Is the Earth sending secret messages to the moon?

Well, yes -- sort of.

Eanna Flanagan, Cornell associate professor of physics and astronomy, has 
devoted his life to understanding gravity since he was a student at 
University College Dublin in his native Ireland. Now, nearly two decades 
after leaving Ireland to study for his doctorate under the famous relativist 
Kip Thorne at the California Institute of Technology, his work focuses on 
predicting the size and shape of gravitational waves -- an elusive 
phenomenon forecast by Einstein's 1916 Theory of General Relativity but 
which have never been directly detected.

Full article here:

http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/April06/Flanagan.gravity.TO.html