{"id":6671,"date":"2025-10-09T14:54:55","date_gmt":"2025-10-09T18:54:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/momentum\/?p=6671"},"modified":"2025-10-20T15:40:54","modified_gmt":"2025-10-20T19:40:54","slug":"unlocking-the-mystery-of-gravitational-waves-light-years-away-to-the-phone-in-your-pocket","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/momentum\/unlocking-the-mystery-of-gravitational-waves-light-years-away-to-the-phone-in-your-pocket\/","title":{"rendered":"Unlocking the Mystery of Gravitational Waves Light Years Away to the Phone in Your Pocket"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

To unlock the mysteries of the galaxy, you need computing power, and lots of it. And if you want to develop the next generation of artificial intelligence, you need even more computing power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Research initiatives and projects across the country fuels discoveries that answer not only the big questions of today, but spill into everyday use.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Take, for example, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory or LIGO for short. This multi-institutional research project received support more than 40 years ago from National Science Foundation (NSF). In 2017 University of Rhode Island (URI) researchers joined the LIGO Scientific Collaboration as the only member from the Ocean State.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Earlier this year Michael P\u00fcrrer, a URI adjunct professor in physics and Collaborative member, co-authored a study that presented a way to quickly analyze gravitational wave data to study the merger of binary neutron stars. Using new machine learning algorithms, P\u00fcrrer and the team slimmed what took an hour down to a second.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While that opens the doors to learning more about the galaxy and physics, it\u2019s not a large jump to apply the same lessons to artificial intelligence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Robert Coyne, URI associate teaching professor in physics, points to how rapidly AI has become woven into everyday experiences. With AI models such as ChatGPT and many others, machine learning has moved from a curiosity directly into today’s society. As LIGO Scientific Collaboration\u2019s Communications and Education Division chair, he sees the similarities between the lab\u2019s research on large language models analyzing gravitational waves and the AI-powered assistant on a smartphone. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Robert Coyne
Associate Teaching Professor in Physics<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe are all now interacting with large language models like ChatGPT\u2026 that produce real-time feedback because of extremely well-trained machine learning frameworks,\u201d Coyne says. \u201cWe now see inherently the value of this computational technology, but this sort of work has been going into science much like what we have been doing at the LIGO Scientific Collaboration for decades.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, while Coyne and his students may study galaxies light years away, he says the underlying research can answer remarkably more down-to-earth questions involving big data.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe skills that students gain from working in this field are infinitely transferable,\u201d Coyne says. \u201cFrom measuring fluctuations on the stock market, to getting better walkability in neighborhood areas, to tackling big data in complicated systems.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And you don\u2019t necessarily need a massive supercomputer to develop the research.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

URI Assistant Vice President for Research Computing and Physics Professor Gaurav Khanna once used PlayStations. At the time he was working at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth and realized the gaming console came fully loaded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Gaurav Khanna
Assistant Vice President for Research Computing and Physics Professor <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSony was releasing the PlayStation 3\u2026marketing the machine as a supercomputer on a chip at an affordable price,\u201d Khanna says. \u201cSo, I bought eight PlayStations, wired them together, and showed that this could work as a supercomputer.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NSF provided $300,000 to fund a proof of concept that supercomputers could be built for far less than the normal millions of dollars. And with further support from the Department of Defense, the collection of PlayStations – at its peak around 400 – showcased the power of supercomputing at a reasonable scale.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today, Khanna applies the same lessons at URI as head of the High-Performance Research Computing facility. It provides computing power to researchers across campus, many drawn to the promises of AI to unlock today\u2019s scientific mysteries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere\u2019s not much you can do without high performance computing in regard to large language models like ChatGPT as they require a massive amount of computational resources,\u201d Khanna says. \u201cSo supercomputing is critical for further development of AI.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the main focuses of researchers chasing the next generation of computing is quantum computing. While traditional computers use bits \u2013 zeros and ones \u2013 quantum computers use qubits, meaning they can simultaneously store a zero and a one. That makes them much, much faster, positioned to power AI and churn through major data sets across an array of industries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To investigate the possibilities, URI Assistant Professor of Physics Wenchao Ge received $800,000 from NSF. With the money and access to computing resources at industry partners like IBM, Ge is exploring the algorithms used to solve complex optimization problems that answer real-world questions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Wenchao Ge
Assistant Professor of Physics <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cUsing quantum sensors which rely on these quantum states, we can better increase the sensitivity of things such as global positioning systems,\u201d Ge says. \u201cIn addition, using quantum computation we can also optimize travel times for delivery companies such as UPS.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The NSF\u2019s contributions to Ge\u2019s work does not stop at his lab. The state of Rhode Island belongs to the NSF\u2019s Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR), which aims to reinforce the competitiveness of scientific research. To that end, the NSF holds conferences for EPSCoR researchers to drive collaboration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI attended an NSF workshop on quantum computing for EPSCoR states, which has allowed for connections within the community,\u201d Ge says. \u201cIt takes time trying to find people who share similar interests. But the NSF and EPSCoR play a huge role in making that happen.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And with that, scientists can bring lessons from gravitational waves light years away to the phone in your pocket.<\/p>\n\n\n

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To unlock the mysteries of the galaxy, you need computing power, and lots of it. And if you want to develop the next generation of artificial intelligence, you need even more computing power. Research initiatives and projects across the country fuels discoveries that answer not only the big questions of today, but spill into everyday […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":701,"featured_media":6678,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[32,33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6671","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-momentum-spring-25-body","category-momentum-spring-25-featured"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/momentum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6671","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/momentum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/momentum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/momentum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/701"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/momentum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6671"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/momentum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6671\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6681,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/momentum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6671\/revisions\/6681"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/momentum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6678"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/momentum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6671"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/momentum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6671"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/momentum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6671"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}