You are listening to a program from BBC Radio 4.

Imagine trying to detect something move by less than a trillionth of a millimeter,

that's smaller than the nucleus of an atom.

Not only that, imagine trying to extract this signal

from all the other things happening on Earth that might cause it to move by such

an unimaginably small amount. Well, that's what you need to do if you want to detect gravitational

waves here on Earth. And as we all know, it can be done, because it has. In February

this year, scientists announced that they detected gravitational waves

exactly a hundred years after Einstein predicted their existence,

although even he had his doubts, and almost half a century after the search began.

My guest today at the Chantlem Science Festival

has devoted her career to the search for these tiny ripples in the fabric of space time.

She's also just been appointed as the new chief scientific advisor for Scotland.

Professor Sheila Rowan, welcome to the Life Scientific.

Thank you very much. So Sheila, what did it mean to you when scientists in the US announce that they

detected gravitational waves? It was a really amazing feeling and when I first heard I think like many colleagues

almost unbelievable that after all these years in fact after decades we finally had got there finally

got to that point and they were detected just weeks after your highly

specialized mirrors that go into the experiment had actually been

installed.

I mean that must have been personally gratifying for you.

Personally enormously gratifying.

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