THE SEARCH FOR GRAVITATIONAL WAVES

_______________________________________

The search for gravitational waves

_____________________________________________________________

General relativity predicts that ripples are produced in the fabric of space–time when mass is accelerated. Detecting this phenomenon is one of the outstanding challenges in physics.

LAST AUGUST the bookmaker Ladbrokes offered the public a chance to bet on science. When the betting opened, Ladbrokes was offering odds of 500/1 that gravitational waves – a so far unconfirmed prediction of Einstein's general theory of relativity – would be detected by a laser-based experiment called LIGO before 2010. To those of us working on gravitational waves this was an opportunity not to be missed, and we quickly staked the maximum amount allowed by the bookmakers. Others did the same, and when the betting closed a few weeks later the odds had shortened to 2/1