Q&A with Nobel laureate Barry Barish

Barish explains how LIGO became the high-achieving experiment it is today. Illustration by Ana Kova These days the LIGO experiment seems almost unstoppable. In September 2015, LIGO detected gravitational waves directly for the first time in history. Afterward, they spotted them three times more, definitively blowing open the doors on the new field of gravitational-wave astronomy. On October 3, the Nobel Committee awarded their 2017 prize in physics to some of the main engines behind the experime...