Chris Lintott on the discovery of primordial gravitational waves
"It's like all our Christmases at once - I doubt many cosmologists will get much sleep tonight."
- Chris Lintott, quoted in London Metro
Just a few days ago, researchers made a major discovery that's still rocking the scientific community: the detection of a faint echo of the Big Bang, which goes a long way towards proving the universe-origin theory of 'inflation'. Lintott, of Oxford University, summed up the resulting jubilation nicely (in a print edition of the newspaper with no link available).
Other scientists have also weighed in, including Clement Pryke of the University of Minnesota, one of the discoverers, who noted, "This has been like looking for a needle in a haystack, but instead we found a crowbar."
Cosmologist Hiranya Peiris from University College London, meanwhile, was less poetic: "...Jesus, wow! I’ll be taking next week off."
You can read a fascinating account of this discovery by science writer (and lab lit novelist) Stuart Clark, including all the gossip about who might get the inevitable Nobel.