Since the beginning of civilization, people have been searching for answers (unsuccessfully) to very similar questions.  One of these questions being, how did we get here?  Whatever your religious beliefs are, it seems as though scientists and much of society have switched from trying to answer this questions on a spiritual basis, to attempting to answer the question with science.  One of the latest examples of scientists attempting to prove that we are here from the big bang theory occurred in March of 2014 by BICEP2.  I understand that you may be left with more questions than answers from my introduction to this controversial issue but let me explain.

The first question that most likely arose as you were reading my introduction is, what are gravitational waves?  Gravitational waves were first conceived in 1916 by Albert Einstein alongside his theory of relativity.  The official definition of gravitational waves are: “ripples that carry energy across the universe.” In a more simple sense, imagine a pond, and we get a massive crane and drop a ten ton boulder in the middle of the pond.  What would happen?  Waves would propagate towards the outside of the pond.  Now, substitute the pond with outer space and the dropping of the boulder with some cataclysmic even that occurred in space such as the big bang.

Expanding on this, the discovery of gravitational waves would have huge implications in the world of science for two reasons.  The first reason being that the exhistance of gravitational waves would prove einsteins theory of general relativity to be correct.  Einsteins theory of general relativity explains that space is a fabric and extremeley large objects in space can actually bend space itself.  This explanation may be somewhat unclear but this video may offer some insight.  The second reason why the discovery of gravitational waves would be ground breaking is the fact that this would go a long way to proving the big bang theory true.  Concievably, any occurance in space could create ripples in space time.  However, the only known event in history that could explain the existence of ripples in space time that are large enough to be detected is the Big Bang.

Nearly a year and a half ago, BICEP2 located at the south pole discovered a curling pattern of light waves in the cosmic microwave background. This Curling of light waves is called B-mode polarization.  Based on the data collected from BICEP2, scientists predicted that that this activity could only be explained by the rapid expansion of the universe caused by the Big Bang.  However, as learned in lecture, science is a process and just because one team of scientists believe they have made a discovery, does not meant that they have.

Even though these findings seemed promising and exciting, in recent months the team of scientists that published this discovery actually withdrew their claim.  This withdrawal came largely because of findings by the European Space Agency and their Planck satellite.  This team of scientists proved that the findings by BICEP2 can all be attributed to galactic dust and not gravitational waves.  Having said this, Planck’s discovery does not 100% rule out the possibility that gravitational waves played a role in BICEP2’s reading, it only offers a viable explanation for the reading that is not gravitational waves.
So, considering this “discovery” and later disapproval, do gravitational waves exist?  I believe the answer is yes.  So far, all parts of Einsteins theory of general relativity have been proven and this is the last piece of the puzzle.  If Einstein was correct with all of his other postulations then it is reasonable to give him the benefit of the doubt on this one.  Furthermore, if space-time is a fabric, and we know a force on a taught fabric causes a wave to propagate across that fabric, why would a large force in space not create a wave?  Whether you believe in the Big Bang or not is a whole other issue, but if the Big Bang did happen, it would have to create gravitational waves in space.  It is only a matter of time until we detect them.

Sources:

http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/mar/17/gravitational-waves-bicep-inflation-big-bang

http://www.livescience.com/44166-big-bang-inflation-gravitational-waves-physics.html

http://www.space.com/28423-cosmic-inflation-signal-space-dust.html