Two city-sized stars, each so heavy they bend space like iron weights on a trampoline, circle each other for eons. Think of figure skaters in slow motion — except these skaters weigh more than the Sun, and their rink is the fabric of the universe itself. In 2017, after that long, relentless dance, they finally collided. The crash sent ripples through space-time that traveled for 130 million years before brushing past Earth, where we caught them with our great laser ears, LIGO and Virgo. The event was tagged GW170817, though it deserved a better name . . . maybe “The Shout Across the Cosmos.”

Now here’s where the story thickens. Some physicists had long suspected our universe might hide extra rooms, tucked-away dimensions beyond the usual four (three of space, one of time). If that were true, gravitational waves could slip into those invisible corridors, like echoes leaking into hidden caves. By the time the ripples reached Earth, they should’ve been weaker, muffled, almost gasping after their long journey.

But they weren’t. The strength of GW170817 matched Einstein’s old equations with uncanny precision. Four dimensions held the line. No leakage. Just a clean ripple across the cosmic pond, steady and exact, exactly as general relativity promised.

That single event forced a reckoning. Theorists who once roamed wide halls of speculation suddenly found doors swinging shut. Ideas that had promised shortcuts through hidden corridors or playgrounds where gravity could slip away began to look less like bold frontiers and more like abandoned rooms. A mansion of possibility shrank to a single sturdy corridor, and at the far end stood Einstein, chalk in hand, as if he had been waiting there all along.

And yet, the real wonder isn’t what got ruled out — it’s what stood firm. The universe still sings in four-part harmony: length, width, height, and time. No hidden choirs humming in secret corridors, no echoes lost in extra hallways. Just the vast stage Jehovah built, steady and exact, ringing with the voice He gave it.

Job once admitted, after being confronted with creation’s mysteries: “I talked, but I was not understanding things too wonderful for me, which I do not know.” (Job 42:3, NWT). Listening to the universe through gravitational waves is a little like pressing your ear to the ground and catching a tremor far away — a reminder that the wonder runs deeper than our theories can hold.

Our models may stretch, bend, even wobble.

The Creator’s design?

. . . It doesn’t leak.