Abstract

Gravitational waves were a prediction of Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity in 1916. Einstein himself was rather pessimistic about the prospect of ever detecting them, perhaps justifiably, since their measurable effects are tiny. Indeed gravitational radiation from even the most promising sources, such as pairs of neutron stars or black holes colliding in nearby galaxies, were predicted to cause minuscule changes in spacetime here on the earth: gravitational wave strain – or change in length per length – of order 10⁻²¹.

© 2017 IEEE