ИСТИНА

Citation for the 2017 RAS Group Achievement Award ‘A’ The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) team The Group Achievement Award in astronomy is given to the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) team. The direct detection of gravitational waves by the LIGO detectors situated in Livingston and Hanford in the US is an epochal event in physics and astronomy. This extraordinary achievement is the culmination of many decades of work, including US-based instruments and teams working alongside scientists around the world, with Glasgow, Cardiff and Birmingham playing important roles in the UK. The direct detection of gravitational waves is of fundamental importance: It is confirmation of the last hallmark prediction of general relativity. These waves now provide a new probe of strong gravity fields, thus a new method to further our understanding of general relativity. The measured waveform has provided a direct detection of black hole binary systems, paving the way for the use of gravitational waves as probes of extremely relativistic astrophysical systems. This achievement reveals a new way of 'seeing' the Universe. The detection itself was a tour-de-force example of making the un-measurable measurable: detecting a change in distance scales roughly one hundred millionth the size of an atom. This discovery represents a historic advance of scientific, technological and engineering achievement. For these reasons, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) team is awarded the Group Achievement Award.