LIGO, which stands for the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory, is a large-scale physics experiment aiming to directly detect gravitational wave

Gravitational wave

In physics, gravitational waves are theoretical ripples in the curvature of spacetime which propagates as a wave, traveling outward from the source. Predicted to exist by Albert Einstein in 1916 on the basis of his theory of general relativity, gravitational waves theoretically transport energy as...

s. Cofounded in 1992 by Kip Thorne

Kip Thorne

Kip Stephen Thorne is an American theoretical physicist, known for his prolific contributions in gravitation physics and astrophysics and for having trained a generation of scientists...

 and Ronald Drever

Ronald Drever

Ron Drever is a Scottish physicist. He is currently a Professor Emeritus at the California Institute of Technology.Among other accomplishments he co-founded the LIGO project, and was a co-inventor of the Pound-Drever-Hall technique for laser stabilisation....

 of Caltech

California Institute of Technology

The California Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Pasadena, California, United States. Caltech has six academic divisions with strong emphases on science and engineering...

 and Rainer Weiss

Rainer Weiss

Rainer Weiss is professor of physics emeritus at MIT.- Early life and education :Weiss was born in Berlin, Germany, in 1932. Fleeing political unrest, his family moved first to Prague, in late 1932, and then to the United States, in 1938; his youth was spent in New York City, where he attended...

 of MIT

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological education and research.Founded in 1861 in...

, LIGO is a joint project between scientists at MIT, Caltech, and many other colleges and universities. It is sponsored by the National Science Foundation

National Science Foundation

The National Science Foundation is a United States government agency that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National Institutes of Health...

 (NSF). At the cost of $365 million (in 2002 USD), it is the largest and most ambitious project ever funded by the NSF.