Gravitational waves provide a completely new way of looking at the Universe This discovery is the first detection of a black hole binary system And the first observation of black holes merging The area of the final black hole is greater than the sum of the areas of the initial black holes As predicted by my black hole area theorem The properties of these black holes are also consistent with the black hole no-hair theorem Which says that they should be uniquely characterized by their mass and spin The ability to detect them has the potential to revolutionize astronomy This discovery lets us test the predictions of General Relativity When the gravitational field is strong, and highly dynamical, during the black hole merger These results confirm several very important predictions of Einstein's Theory of General Relativity It confirms the existence of gravitational waves directly