LIGO and Gravitational Waves I

Between this talk and the next by Barry Barish, we will give a contracted version of the Nobel Prize 2017 talks that were given by Weiss, Barish and Thorne. The intent is to begin with a little history of the field of gravitational wave detection. Follow with some of the basic ideas describing the waves and their detection. Present the recent discoveries and finally talk about the future directions of the field of gravitational waves and multi-messenger astronomy.