LIGO And The Denver Broncos: A Tale Of Two Comebacks
There is nothing so compelling as a story about falling down, recovering your footing, and then charging over the goal line completely redeemed … unless it is two such stories. The Denver Broncos’ Super Bowl 50 victory and the laser interferometer gravitational-wave observatory’s (LIGO’s) detection of gravity waves offer parallel examples. What, football and physics? Yep. I watched the big game on TV, like tens of millions of others. But as a technical consultant to LIGO, I had a Goodyear blimp’s view of their gridiron when the collaboration fumbled its funding, recovered its mojo, and then sprinted to victory by observing gravitational radiation generated more than a billion years ago.
