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Culture, history and society

Culture, history and society

Materials science conserves 500-year-old warship, new gravitational-wave discoveries by LIGO–Virgo

25 Nov 2021 Hamish Johnston

In 1545 the English warship Mary Rose sank in a battle off the south coast of England and was raised more than 400 years later. The ship and some of its contents are now on display at the Mary Rose Museum in Portsmouth.

In this episode of the Physics World Weekly podcast, the materials scientist and deputy chief executive of the Mary Rose Trust, Eleanor Schofield, explains the science behind conserving objects that have spent centuries underwater.

The LIGO–Virgo observatories are one of the success stories of 21st century physics. The LIGO detectors were the first ever to detect a gravitational-wave signal – from the merger of two black holes – back in 2015. Since then, LIGO and Virgo have detected a total of 90 gravitational-wave signals. Cardiff University physicists and LIGO–Virgo members Katherine Dooley, Stephen Fairhurst and Fabio Antonini are on hand to talk about the latest haul of observations and what we can expect in the future.

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