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1. (5 points) Summarize the following text in about 150 words.

(M. Somerville (1826). “On the Magnetizing Power of the More Refrangible Solar Rays” Philosophical Transactions
of the Royal Society of London, Vol. 116, No. 1/3, pp. 132-139)

In the year 1813, Professor Morichini of Rome discovered that steel, exposed to the violet rays of the
solar spectrum, becomes magnetic. His experiments were repeated by Professor Configliachi at Pavia,
and also by Mons. Berard, at Montpellier, without success. I am not aware of any one having attempted
them in this country, perhaps from the belief that experiments which had sometimes failed in Italy, were
not likely to succeed in our more northern climate. The unusual clearness of the weather last summer,
however, induced me to try what could be accomplished in this country. Accordingly, in the month of July,
an equiangular prism of “flint” glass, the three sides of which were each 1.4 by 1.1 inches, was fixed in a
slit made to receive it in a window-shutter: by this prism a coloured spectrum was thrown on an opposite
panel, at the distance of about five feet. I used for the subject of experiment, a very slender sewing needle
an inch long, having previously verified that it was quite free from magnetism, by repeated exposure of
both ends of it to the north and south pole of a very sensible magnetic needle, when it was found equally
to attract either pole in every instance. The magnetic needle employed as a test in this experiment, is
made of a sewing needle magnetised, and run through a small piece of cork, into which a conical cap of
glass is inserted; the whole traverses on the point of a needle fixed perpendicularly in a stand.
I had no information at this time of the manner in which Professor Morichini had conducted his exper-
iments; but it occurred to me that it was not likely that if the whole of the needle were equally exposed to
the violet rays, the same influence should, at the same time, produce a south pole at one end of it, and
a north pole at the other. I therefore covered half of the needle with paper, and fixed it to the panel with
wax, between ten and eleven in the morning, in such a position that the uncovered part of it should be
exposed to the violet rays. The needle was placed in a vertical plane, nearly perpendicular to the magnetic
meridian, and inclined to the horizon. As I had not a heliostat, it was necessary to move the needle in a
direction parallel to itself, to keep the exposed portion of it constantly in the violet ray.
The sun was bright at the time, and in less than two hours I had the gratification to find that the end of
the needle which had been exposed to the violet rays attracted the south pole of the magnetic needle, and
repelled the north pole. It had been previously verified that there was no iron near to disturb the results.
The experiment was also repeated on the same day, under precisely similar circumstances, with the view
of detecting any source of error that might have escaped observation in a first attempt; but the result was
the same as in the first.
 The season was so favourable that it afforded me daily opportunity of repeating the experiments, vary-
ing the size of the needles, always taking especial care to verify that other of the more refrangible rays had
the same property as the violet. A set of needles carefully examined as before were therefore subjected to
the different rays of the solar spectrum; the needles exposed to blue and green rays, sometimes acquired
the magnetic property, though less frequently, and requiring longer exposure than when the violet rays
were used; but the magnetism seemed to be equally strong in these as in the examples of the violet rays.
The part exposed became a north pole. The indigo rays succeeded almost as well as the violet. [. . . ]
Note: Years later, Mary Somerville wrote “I imagined I had succeeded or I should not have published my
experimentation in the transactions of the Royal Society of which I am heartily ashamed as I think I
must have been mistaken. I am still more ashamed of my presumption in having sent a copy to the
Marquis de Laplace, who very good-naturedly thanked me for it in a letter he wrote introducing M.
Bouvard the astronomer and savant. Since then I have committed all copies to the flames.”
1. (5 points) Translate into Spanish the following text.
(B. P. Abbott et al. (2016). “Observation of Gravitational Waves from a Binary Black Hole Merger”. Phys. Rev. Lett.
116, 061102)

In 1916, the year after the final formulation of the field equations of general relativity, Albert Einstein
predicted the existence of gravitational waves. He found that the linearized weak-field equations had wave
solutions: transverse waves of spatial strain that travel at the speed of light, generated by time variations of
the mass quadrupole moment of the source [1,2]. Einstein understood that gravitational-wave amplitudes
would be remarkably small; moreover, until the Chapel Hill conference in 1957 there was significant debate
about the physical reality of gravitational waves [3].
The discovery of the binary pulsar system PSRB1913+16 by Hulse and Taylor [4] and subsequent
observations of its energy loss by Taylor and Weisberg [5] demonstrated the existence of gravitational
waves. This discovery, [. . . ], led to the recognition that direct observations of the amplitude and phase of
gravitational waves would enable studies of additional relativistic systems and provide new tests of general
relativity, especially in the dynamic strong-field regime.
Experiments to detect gravitational waves began with Weber and his resonant mass detectors in the
1960s [6], followed by an international network of cryogenic resonant detectors. Interferometric detectors
were first suggested in the early 1960s [7] [. . . ]. A study of the noise and performance of such detectors,
and further concepts to improve them, led to proposals for long-baseline broadband laser interferometers
with the potential for significantly increased sensitivity. By the early 2000s, a set of initial detectors was
completed, including TAMA 300 in Japan, GEO 600 in Germany, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-
Wave Observatory (LIGO) in the United States, and Virgo in Italy. Combinations of these detectors made
joint observations from 2002 through 2011, setting upper limits on a variety of gravitational-wave sources
while evolving into a global network. In 2015, Advanced LIGO became the first of a significantly more
sensitive network of advanced detectors to begin observations.

1. A. Einstein, Sitzungsber. K. Preuss. Akad. Wiss. 1, 688 (1916).

2. A. Einstein, Sitzungsber. K. Preuss. Akad. Wiss. 1, 154 (1918).
3. P. R. Saulson, Gen. Relativ. Gravit. 43, 3289 (2011).
4. R. A. Hulse and J. H. Taylor, Astrophys. J. 195, L51 (1975).
5. J. H. Taylor and J. M. Weisberg, Astrophys. J. 253, 908 (1982).
6. J. Weber, Phys. Rev. 117, 306 (1960).
7. M. E. Gertsenshtein and V. I. Pustovoit, Sov. Phys. JETP 16, 433 (1962).