"An important, multifaceted scientific story to tell--part theoretical physics, part astronomy, part experimental physics, part engineering. Bartusiak is dream[y] in mood and . stately in tone."--James Ryerson, New York Times Book Review Included on the 2017 Best Book List by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) "When a gravity wave is first detected, the reader of this book will feel like a participant in the great event."--David Goodstein, New York Times Book Review for the previous edition, a Notable Book for 2000 "If aliens came to Earth to measure our level of advancement, we could do no better than to show them LIGO, Earth's first gravitational wave observatory, and to hand them a copy of this book to explain how we did it."--Adam Riess, Nobel Laureate in Physics, 2011 "Bartusiak provides a fascinating description of how the LIGO Scientific Collaboration first observed the gravitational waves from the merger of two black holes. The observation is the first step in a new field of gravitational wave astronomy, and this book shows readers the evolution of that field from a new idea in 1915 to a measurement in 2015."--Rai Weiss, Massachusetts Institute of Technology "This book gives a splendid account of a century-long saga that culminated in spectacular confirmation of Einstein's theory.

Bartusiak's account is fascinating--and a remarkable 'case study' in how science advances."--Sir Martin Rees, author of Just Six Numbers.