wasn't a Nobel prize awarded in the 1990s (1993 or 1994?) for ground breaking work on gravitational waves?
This measurement needs to be validated by repeated detection and hopefully verified by another device in another part of the world.
Gravitational waves exist theoretically, and are a rational consequence of intense matter/energy interactions, but obviously are difficult to detect due to their faintness and minute amplitudes.
Looks like the next generation of LIGO detectors might get funding - perhaps increase the length of the evacuated tube to 6km or more. (remember, the initial funding for the LIGO detector was fought for vigorously and almost didnt get approved). One of these simple experiments but performed on ridiculously large scale looking for minute shifts in laser beam measurements. I hope they allowed for the trucks zooming on the nearby freeway or the odd earth tremor.
Just when you thought that the pathetic corporatised Scientific community, with its trivial pursuit of technological advancements approved by Wall Street short term junkies was plunging deeper and deeper into its sticky abyss of ignorance, it sneaks in some fundamental research like the LIGO experiment or the LHC search for the Higgs Boson. we are definitely wiser as a result of their results.
Who would have thunk it? Well done Kip, the gang and the Russian freak scientists in Moscow
