The Search for Gravitational Waves: What, Why and How
About 90 years ago Albert Einstein put forth his general theory of relativity. One of the theory’s most dramatic predictions is the existence of gravitational waves – ripples in the fabric of space and time. In this talk I’ll discuss some sources of gravitational waves and current experimental efforts to detect them with the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) and pulsar timing experiments. Time permitting, I’ll also describe some of the details of how the search for a stochastic background of gravitational waves is carried out.