Objectives

Know the purposes for additional

references in news stories
Lesson 8-1: Gravitational Waves Know what it means to celebrate
science
Required Reading
Be able to explain and evaluate a
1. Identify the Result. result with additional information
(references) synthesized

2. This article is a good example of what many news writers do when writing popular science celebrate science.
From your reading of the article, what do you understand by celebrating science? What words in the article serve
this goal?

3. In science news stories, writers sometimes make additional references to scientific ideas to enhance their
storytelling. Why does the author refer to (i) Higgs Boson, and (ii) Dark Energy? How do these additional
references enhance his news story?

4. (a) Write a section to humanize the reporting in this news article by means of (in)direct speech. To do this, look up
an additional source for suitable information to quote (in)directly.

(b) Reflectively comment on your use of additional reference in 4(a).

Hints/Help: Here are a few additional sources for consideration for a start. Feel free to explore other sources for your purposes on your
own.
[S]aid Prof Alberto Vecchio, of the University of Birmingham This observation is truly incredible science and marks three
milestones for physics: the direct detection of gravitational waves, the first detection of a binary black hole, and the most
convincing evidence to date that natures black holes are the objects predicted by Einsteins theory. [Source]
[Physicist Stephen Hawking of the University of Cambridge, UK] says that he would like to use gravitational waves to test his area
theorem: that the area of the final black hole is greater than the sum of the areas of the internal black holes. [Source]
[Source]