Has giant LIGO experiment seen gravitational waves?
On 25 September, a sensational rumour appeared on Twitter: Lawrence Krauss, a cosmologist, reported hearing that the world’s largest gravitational-wave observatory had seen a signal, barely a week after its official re-opening.
The rumour had been spreading around physics circles for at least a week. If it is true, and if the signal seen by the Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) genuinely represents the signature of a gravitational wave, it would confirm one of the most-elusive and spectacular predictions of the general theory of relativity almost exactly 100 years after Albert Einstein first proposed it.