Well, you've had enough time to think about the discovery of LIGO gravitational waves, understand what it is, and draw interesting conclusions for yourself. The significance of this discovery shocked the world, so you will be interested in learning about the lesser known sides of it. For instance…
Gravity Waves Shouldn't Be Helpful
This is a common question that comes up with a new scientific discovery: can gravitational waves be there? Can you swim on them? In general, can you do anything useful with them? For example, build an anti-gravity machine. Or a warp drive. All of these ideas are wonderful in their own way, but they do not capture the main point. We are not studying gravitational waves to do anything. We study gravitational waves because we want to understand gravitational waves.
Richard Feynman put it very well:
"Physics is like sex: of course, it can give some practical results, but that's not why we are doing it."
Obviously, it is difficult to predict the emergence of new technologies that could take their toll from this discovery. Take a laser, for example. When it was created in 1960, many thought it would have no practical use. Of course they were wrong. Lasers are everywhere today.
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LIGO detection does not prove the existence of gravitational waves
But let's start with the essence of the "proof." Science never proves the truth of something - it simply cannot do it. Science builds models. If these models correspond to real data, great - but that does not validate the model. Conversely, if you find data that is inconsistent with your model, this may indicate that the model is in error. So the word "proof" need not be used.
Farther. LIGO has not proven the existence of gravitational waves. But this project was the first to gather evidence to support the gravitational wave model. Is it better? No. The problem remains. Let's go back to the past. In 1993 Russell Hulse and Joseph Taylor, Jr. received the Nobel Prize in Physics for their discovery of a binary pulsar with a variable orbital period. According to Einstein's general theory of relativity, these pulsars should emit gravitational waves and decrease the orbital period, as Hulse and Taylor precisely discovered. We can say that they were the first to receive convincing evidence of the existence of gravitational waves.
But didn't LIGO detect waves instead of just looking for evidence of their existence? You can say so, but it all depends on what is considered "direct measurement". Nobody saw a gravitational wave. LIGO watched the mirrors move, armed with gravitational waves. Don't get me wrong, the discovery is really serious.
LIGO would not have detected this signal without Advanced LIGO
Advanced LIGO has increased the sensitivity of the detectors. Since the signal strength of the gravitational wave weakens with distance traveled, a more sensitive detector will allow you to "see" the universe further. Much further.
Without Advanced LIGO, a gravitational event (like a collision of neutron stars) would be required much closer to Earth. If these events are rare, it will take a long time. By increasing the observation distance, LIGO increases the chances of detecting future events.
A lot has been invested in LIGO
The US National Science Foundation has been investing in the search for gravitational waves since the 1970s. Since then, it has invested about $ 1.1 billion. This is a lot of money, divided over a fairly long time. Of course, everyone would like to give back early, but it does not always work out that way. Science knows how to wait, endure, not see progress for a long time (although there is progress). Is this project worth a billion dollars? Absolutely. However, in 2015, the US military spent $ 600 billion, so against this background, investing in LIGO seems to be nonsense.
There are plans to send a gravitational wave detector into space
Exactly. The detector in space will be free of annoying noise on the ground. And there will be a vacuum too. The space gravity observatory will also be quite large, as the mirrors will have to be placed in different places. There will be a lot of technical difficulties associated with this, but we will try.
This is the goal of the eLISA program. The program launched two LISA Pathfinder test masses. This particular mission will test how accurately two masses can be positioned - a necessary step towards building a space-based gravity observatory.
Low frequency gravitational waves can be measured with a radio telescope
Pulsars are like the clock of the universe. The timing (timing) of a pulsar is measured with radio telescopes (which use radio waves instead of visible light). How could they be used as gravitational wave detectors? For example, look at pulsar signals in different places. When a low-frequency gravitational wave passes through pulsars, their own timing changes. Based on changes in the time and location of the pulsars, you can create essentially a giant version of LIGO in space (the largest). These are called pulsar time grid arrays, and they are completely real.
Perhaps LIGO is happy to have reported the discovery of a gravitational wave before radio telescopes did.