LIGO backstory delights and displeases
DOI: 10.1063/PT.3.3575
Robert Garisto tells us (Physics Today, August 2016, page 10 ) of the secrecy he maintained at Physical Review Letters prior to the announcement that a “chirp” had been detected at the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO). On sabbatical at Caltech, I had the pleasure of joining local astronomers to watch the press conference from the astronomy and astrophysics auditorium (whose street number, 1216, is the Lyman-alpha wavelength in angstroms). But as we left after the dazzling announcement, with music in our ears, they gave out coffee cups and bumper stickers each with the data already emblazoned on it. I should have hung out in the print shop days before!
Further, if I had a name that began with the letters Aa, I should have joined the LIGO collaboration, which published as “B. P. Abbot et al.” with more than 1000 coauthors. 1
References
1. B. P. Abbott et al. (LIGO scientific collaboration and Virgo collaboration), Phys. Rev. Lett. 116, 061102 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.116.061102
More about the Authors
Jay M. Pasachoff. (jmp@caltech.edu) California Institute of Technology, Pasadena.
