Is the 2017 Physics Nobel premature?
The discovery of gravitational waves by LIGO faces serious scrutiny as it lacks complete closure, explains Abhas Mitra.
On October 3, 2017, the Nobel Prize for Physics was awarded to three American physicists, "for decisive contribution to Laser Interferometry Gravitational Observatory (LIGO) detector and observation of gravitational waves," a sort of extremely faint ripples propagating through the very fabric of space-time resulting from most powerful cosmic catastrophes. Some Nobel prizes in the past have kicked up controversies. The latest award may join the list if one seriously considers the questions raised by some physicists in the recent years in peer-reviewed journals, which remain unanswered. While everybody would be in awe of the success of the mechanical and optical engineering behind LIGO, the claim for a decisive discovery of gravitational waves did not appear convincing to all.