Cool Physics #17: LIGO and Gravitational Radiation

This is a somewhat long overview of the design of the LIGO gravitational radiation detector. LIGO detected the first inspiral of stellar-mass (30~ish solar mass) black holes in 2015. There is a lot to unpack, especially regarding the science. I'll probably have to revisit it to go into some of those details.

Image from R. Hurt/Caltech-JPL