Chandrasekhar Hall

The fascinating interplay of gravitational wave detection and the two-body problem in general relativity

Bala Iyer

ICTS-TIFR, Bangalore

The first detection of gravitational waves from a black hole binary in 2015 was a breakthrough, taking a century to realize, and made possible by the coming together of a remarkable experiment and an exquisite theory complemented by the best in sophisticated data analyses, state of the art computing and the transition to "big science".
Fascinating milestones include a critical understanding of physical effects of gravitational waves and an improved understanding of the problem of two body motion in general relativity. This talk is a personal broad brush overview of how an unforgiving experiment drove an exquisite theory to create a sophisticated data analysis infrastructure to detect gravitational waves and to decipher their properties.