Re:Rumours swirl over credibility of big bang ripple find
by ISL on Wednesday May 14, 2014 @02:54PM
(#7745492)
Look to the Hulse-Taylor binary pulsar; perhaps you needn't wait any longer: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PSR_B1913+16
The energy loss rate from it and similar systems is in agreement with the gravitational wave predictions of General Relativity at the ~0.3% level or so.
The detection method by which BICEP has made its claim is somewhat indirect, too, as they see very weak distortions of CMB polarization made by the aftereffects of said waves.
Direct detection on earth is likely to come from a neutron-star binary merger. If we're lucky enough to get a local supernova in our lifetimes, it will be a huge deal for gravitational waves and many other branches of physics and cosmology. Our observational powers have increased by orders of magnitude since 1987A.
Before that revelation my expectations where that gravitational waves would be detected after the next supernova in the milky-way galaxy. That would require a lot less ingenuity.
I would take discovery by any method during my lifetime, in fact the less expected the better.