First predicted in Einstein’s theory of general relativity, gravitational waves are tiny ripples in spacetime generated by titanic and powerful cosmic events. The great physicist believed that no equipment would ever be sensitive to detect these faint cosmic ripples. Fortunately, Einstein was wrong, but that doesn’t mean that the detection of gravitational waves has been easy.
The history of a planned array interferometer gravitational wave detectors to be built in Europe during the late 1980s, the reasons this failed, and the parallels with current detectors, are documented in a new paper published in The European Physical Journal H, authored by Adele La Rana, University of Verona, and INFN Section of Sapienza University, Italy.
La Rana explains that following the announcement of the first detections of gravitational waves by the LIGO/Virgo collaboration in 2016 and 2017, questions arose regarding “the missed opportunity” of having an array of two or more long-based GW interferometers in Europe.
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