Understanding Gravitational Waves

The birth of a completely new branch of observational astronomy is a rare and exciting occurrence. For a long time, our theories about gravitational waves—proposed by Albert Einstein and others more than a hundred years ago—could never be fully proven, since we lacked the proper technology to do it.

That all changed when, on September 14, 2015, instruments at the LIGO Observatory detected gravitational waves for the first time.

This book explores the nature of gravitational waves—what they ...