Euro. Phys. J. H http://doi.org/brwn (2016)

When the first successful detection of gravitational waves occurred early this year, LIGO became a household name. But the history of gravitational wave detection goes back to the early 1960s. And now, Guido Pizzella has given us a personal account of these experiments — some already forgotten.

Joseph Weber built the first detectors, now known as Weber bars, in the 1960s. These were gravitational wave antennas made of massive aluminium cylinders acting as resonators. Weber's observations, claimed as evidence for detection, could not be confirmed by experiments performed during the following two decades in laboratories worldwide. But despite the disappointment, work continued with cryogenic detectors. Going colder and heavier did improve sensitivity and several experiments ran in the 1990s and early 2000s. However, evidence remained scarce.

Resonant bar detectors never quite managed to detect gravitational waves, but the lessons learned during their construction and operation helped the development of large-scale laser interferometers like LIGO and VIRGO. It seems now that 40 years of work was worth all these efforts.