Black Hole Blues and Other Songs from Outer Space

The full inside story of the detection of gravitational waves at LIGO, one of the most ambitious feats in scientific history*Selected as a Book of the Year 2016 in the Sunday Times*'This is empirical poetry. A fascinating tale of human curiosity beautifully told, and with black holes and lasers too' Robin InceIn 1916 Albert Einstein predicted the existence of gravitational waves: miniscule ripples in the very fabric of spacetime generated by unfathomably powerful events. If such vibrations could somehow be recorded, we could observe our universe for the first time through sound: the hissing of the Big Bang, the low tones of merging galaxies, the drumbeat of two black holes collapsing into one In 2016 a team of hundreds of scientists at work on a billion-dollar experiment made history when they announced the first ever detection of a gravitational wave, confirming Einstein s prediction a century ago. Based on complete access to LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory) and the scientists who created it, Black Hole Blues offers a first-hand account of this astonishing achievement: an intimate story of cutting-edge science at its most awe-inspiring and ambitious.