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Discovery of gravitational waves proves Einstein was right

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Albert Einstein was proved right on Thursday when a group of scientists completed an experiment to prove his General Theory of Relativity.

Physicists from the LIGO Scientific Collaboration in America have recorded the sound of two black holes colliding 1.3 billion light-years away, proving the existence of gravitational waves.

Einstein first posited his General Theory of Relativity 100 years ago to the Prussian Academy of Science, claiming that ripples in space-time should be detectable if two vast bodies came together.

And LIGO co-founder Rainer Weiss said the results were "exactly what Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity would predict for two massive objects like black holes spiralling and merging together."

If the advanced technology present today had been available to Einstein in 1916, Mr Weiss said "I bet he would've invented LIGO."

“We are all over the moon and back,” said Gabriela González of Louisiana State University, a spokeswoman for LIGO. “Einstein would be very happy, I think. It’s monumental - like Galileo using the telescope for the first time."

Szabolcs Marka, a Columbia University professor and one of the LIGO scientists said: “Everything else in astronomy is like the eye. Finally, astronomy grew ears. We never had ears before.”

The discovery is being hailed as one of the greatest scientific discoveries of the decade, and on a par with the detection of the Higgs Boson two years ago.

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