Daniel Holz, posting on Cosmic Variance is starting a series of posts in which he’ll be discussing the history of the search and theoretical underpinnings of gravity waves – the oft predicted but never observed consequence of General Relativity:

“Gravitational waves were born from the mind of Einstein in 1918. He noticed that his brand-spanking-new field equations for the general theory of relativity had a simple wave solution in the weak field regime. These solutions represent propagating waves in the fabric of spacetime, traveling at the speed of light. In another fit of creative nomenclature these were dubbed ‘gravitational waves’.”

Dr. Holz, and the other posters on Cosmic Variance are professional cosmologists active in the cutting edge questions under study, and anything they write is worth reading.

So, you really should read the rest here: The difficult childhood of gravitational waves

(Via Cosmic Variance.)