Session M7: History of Gravitational Waves and General Relativity

Traveling at the Speed of Thought: Proving the Existence of Gravitational Waves

Gravitational Waves represent a nearly unique instance of unfinished business in the history of modern physics. One of the slew of novel concepts which arose in the revolutionary period of the early 20th century, they retained their place in the new physics for nearly a century in the total absence of any kind of experimental confirmation. It was only natural, therefore, that their theoretical development was marked by repeated debate over whether they really existed, or played any kind of role in astrophysical systems such as binary stars. The course of these controversies (including the quadrupole formula controversy) is briefly recounted, and it is argued that both confidence in and skepticism of their existence were nourished by the nature of the analogy with electromagnetic waves which enabled their conceptualization in the first place.   

Development of LIGO: A View From Washington

LIGO is an audacious project attempting both to confirm the essence of dynamical gravitation, and to harness gravitational waves as a new probe of the cosmos. Achieving its already-demonstrated sensitivity required many technologies to advance many orders of magnitude beyond the state of the art before its initiation. The development of LIGO transformed Gravitational Physics from a small-scale individual-investigator effort into a major new international Big Science collaboration. For three decades, the participant community experienced all the struggle and pain that normally accompanies such a transition. It has been a high-risk, high-reward gamble, always full of high promise that has yet to pay off. This talk will explore the development of LIGO as seen from the perspective of its patron in Washington. Construction of this new facility required a 100-fold expansion of the annual budget for research in this subfield. In the face of this challenge and opportunity, the U.S. Government invested scarce research funds with vision and patience, and managed a very long-term, new, risky, and expensive investment with some wisdom.   

Anecdotes, Facts, Opinions and some History of the Theory of Relativity

We will give a brief summary of the history of relativity - with some well known and some less know facts about this history. To prevent the talk from being too dry and dull, I'll tell a few relevant anecdotes and even express my opinion on some controversial issues.