I think I can confidently predict that tomorrow morning either one of two things will happen:
- The first observation of gravitational waves will be reported by the LIGO experiment.
- A large fraction of the scientific community will be really, really angry at members of the LIGO collaboration.
I’m betting on the first of these two alternatives, and like everyone else will be watching to see what happens tomorrow. If you want some informed commentary on what it all means though, this isn’t the place (what I know about gravitational radiation is basically the little that I learned in a GR course about 40 years ago…), so for now I’ll leave comments closed.
One place advertising a live feed is Nature. I’ll be happy to list better possibilities here if people let me know about them.
Update: Another place to try for the webcast is here.
Update: Big event here at Columbia. Roone Arledge auditorium packed.
Update: Quite amazing, just as predicted, observation of two black holes coalescing, a historic discovery. That stuff I was taught 40 years ago really works. More details many places as the embargo is lifted, with some good examples Natalie Wolchover at Quanta, Dennis Overbye at the New York Times, and Davide Castelvecchi and Alexandra Witze at Nature. The paper has been refereed and is here at PRL.
Update: Better info about the waves is available elsewhere, but I can report here on something pretty amazing: my graduate school roommate’s gravitational wave soup bowl.
