Trump budget cuts threaten groundbreaking gravity wave research

[DBoon]

Actual title: Happy Birthday, LIGO. Now Drop Dead.

At 4 a.m. on Sept. 14, 2015, in both the desert of eastern Washington State and the backwoods of Louisiana, two beams of light began quivering in distant synchrony as the space through which they were traveling stretched and shrank at a rate of 250 times a second.

These were the twin antennas of the Laser Interferometry Gravitational-wave Observatory, or LIGO. Far out there in time and space a pair of black holes, gargantuan pits of eternally dark nothingness, had collided and merged, sending gravitational waves rippling through the universe and across the paths of the two antennas.
...
More ominously, President Trump has proposed slashing LIGO’s operating budget in 2026 by 40 percent, to $29 million from $48 million, and eliminating one of the antennas. That could spell disaster, as it takes two antennas to triangulate the origins of gravitational waves.

Dr. Reitze, who spent an agonizing summer studying budget scenarios, said he thought the observatory could be run on the budget suggested, but barely. “It’s going to be ugly,” he said. Most immediately affected would be the 200 or so scientists and technicians at the LIGO Laboratory who run and maintain the antennas on behalf of the larger LVK community. Dr. Reitze described them as “very special scientists and engineers with very specialized skills who have mortgages to pay and kids to put through college.”

What is probably the most significant discovery in 21st century physics is going to be cut short, thanks to Trump's budget cuts and the anti-science republican party.

GIFT Link:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/10/science/gravitational-waves-ligo-black-holes.html?unlocked_article_code=1.lE8.FbVc.No1mZuPeOf5F&smid=url-share

Actual NYT link:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/10/science/gravitational-waves-ligo-black-holes.html

[erronis]

1. LIGO with only one mirror. Let's hear it for trump by clapping one hand.

Last edited Thu Sep 11, 2025, 06:12 PM - Edit history (1)

What a loser.

[caraher]

2. Article didn't say...

but I'd bet the plan is to shut down the blue state interferometer and keep the red state interferometer.

This would be a huge blow as VIRGO is the only other operational gravitational wave observatory. Having multiple operating observatories allows location of the event, so closing down one vastly reduces the chances of successful followup on a detection with other observations.