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Ladies and gentlemen. broadcasts. waves. We did it. In physics, 2016 will be remembered as the year Einstein's theories of space and time were given their ultimate test and proved right. What LIGO, the laser interferometric gravitational wave observatory

detected weren't just waves passing through space,

but vibrations distorting the very shape of space.

That was special.

And as I'll explore in this edition of Discovery for the BBC,

it did more than change physics. LIGO director Dave Reitzer said in that

February press conference it opened up a new way of looking at the universe.

What's really exciting is what comes next.

It's 400 years ago, Galileo turned a telescope

to the sky and opened the era of modern observational astronomy.

I think we're doing something equally important here today.

I think we're opening a window on the universe, the window of gravitational wave astronomy.

I'm Rowland Pease and I find LIGO extraordinary.

Effectively two pairs of rulers on either side of the United States, four kilometers long,

whose precise length can be measured with lasers to nearly a millionth of the width of an atomic

nucleus. That's like knowing the distance to the nearest star to an accuracy of a

hair's width. That's what it takes to see the gravitational disturbance from something violent that

happened in the distant universe.

We've opened an entirely new way of observing the universe using gravitational waves.

...