Getting ready for a book signing at Brownsville, Texas

Celebration of the tenth anniversary of the discovery of gravitational waves @utrgv

Classic car show, Natchitoches, LA

The suspension is coming along nicely. @LIGO - Livingston

After helicoiling the suspended mass (under cloth) I proceeded to helicoil the "picture frame" @ LIGO - Livingston

Started a new build today. A single suspension for the new homodyne readout. All 340 of those threads you see there need to be helicoiled. Got through about 200 today. @LIGO Livingston.

The Dixons immigrated from Scotland a couple of centuries earlier. Local genealogists have found connections to those historical figures. Personally, I find all this rather dubious. But if you wish, I won't mind being called "your royal highness" from now on 🤣
dixonclan.wordpress.com/pedigrees-an...

Fun Saturday factoid: It appears I'm a descendent of William the Conqueror and Charlemagne. My grandmother, Elizabeth Dixon, was born in County Meath (currently Westmeath), Ireland,
in 1871.

At the 25th anniversary gala at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. @perimeterinstitute.ca

This 1907 railway bridge in Argentina just collapsed. Sad.
www.instagram.com/reel/DOwj9VM...

Updated sky localization. 90% area 5216 sq deg.

Updated three-dimensional sky localization. Distance around 700 Mpc.

Yesterday's #GravitationalWave candidate #S250917aq

If real, the source is probably a binary black hole (chirp mass ~5.5–11 solar masses)

False alarm rate 1 in 2.9×10^5 yr
GraceDB gracedb.ligo.org/superevents/...
GCN gcn.nasa.gov/circulars/41... gcn.nasa.gov/circulars/41...
Rating 🍰🐑🦢

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Gabriela González speaking in front of a projection screen that shows a caricature of Einstein surfing on a gravitational wave.

LSU's interim President Matt Lee, speaking from a stage

Brian Wallace, senior advisor to the La. Governor, speaking from podium.

Group of people seated in an auditorium

Here are some more photos from the 10th anniversary event at LIGO Livingston: Gabriela González, LSU Pres. Matt Lee, Bryan Wallace—advisor to the La. Governor, and the assembled audience.

#GW10Years

Amid concerns over potential cuts, Livingston's LIGO scientists mark 10th anniversary of monumental discovery BY CLAIRE GRUNEWALD | Staff writer Sep 14, 2025 A signal lasting less than a second traveled about 1.3 billion light years before it reached an obser vatory deep in the piney woods of Livingston 10 years ago. The brief signal — caused by a pair of black holes colliding - the first gravitational waves ever detected, and it created a new way for scientists to look into the uni-verse. The Sept. 14, 2015, detection con-tirmed a key prediction of Albert Einstein's general theory of rela-tivity, earned the Nobel Prize in physics and kick-started a new era of astronomy. "Most of us had figured that with nature being perverse, that the first signal would be really hard to pull out of the noise. And then the signal came beautifully, beautifully clear," said Joseph Giaime, head of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory in Livingston.

@clargrune.bsky.social of The Advocate covered the 10th anniversary of our GW detection. www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/...

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LIGO and the detection of gravitational waves We're getting into a superposition...

www.thenakedscientists.com/articles/int...

Measuring the transfer functions of a double suspension @ LIGO - Livingston

www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_GI...

www.nola.com/news/ligo-li...
Louisiana scientists first detected gravitational waves from black holes 10 years ago. What's next?

Thanks @ligo.org! 🧪

Les Guthman 🇺🇦 on X: "OTD 10 yrs ago I arrived at the @LIGOLA observatory & interviewed Dr. Gabriela Gonzalez. 12 hours later @LIGO made the historic discovery of #gravitationalwaves. The next 3 days were the most amazing of my career & led to our award winning documentary “LIGO”. #LIGO https://t.co/uQefpwkCh0" / X OTD 10 yrs ago I arrived at the @LIGOLA observatory & interviewed Dr. Gabriela Gonzalez. 12 hours later @LIGO made the historic discovery of #gravitationalwaves. The next 3 days were the most amazing of my career & led to our award winning documentary “LIGO”. #LIGO https://t.co/uQefpwkCh0

OTD 10 yrs ago I arrived at the
@LIGOLA
observatory & interviewed Dr. Gabriela Gonzalez. 12 hours later
@LIGO
made the historic discovery of #gravitationalwaves. The next 3 days were the most amazing of my career & led to our award winning documentary “LIGO”.
x.com/LesGuthman/s...

Few people seem to remember that 10 years ago, at the time a gravitational wave was detected by LIGO, Einstein's apartment in Bern was being declared a historic monument

Top center is Rai Weiss' Nobel Medal and in the bottom left the Princess of Asturias Prize statue created by Joan Miró

For the 10th anniversary of the first gravitational wave detection they prepared an exhibit at the LIGO Science Education Center with "The people of LIGO" and the cabined with various prizes the Collaboration has received. At LIGO Livingston.

Updated sky localization. 90% area 300 sq deg.

Updated three-dimensional volume localization. Distance around 2.7 Gpc.

Friday #GravitationalWave candidate #S250912f

If real, the source is probably a binary black hole (chirp mass ~44–88 solar masses)

False alarm rate 1 per 1.1×10^5 yr
GraceDB gracedb.ligo.org/superevents/...
GCN gcn.nasa.gov/circulars/41... gcn.nasa.gov/circulars/41...
Rating 🐠🍫🐚

[🧪🔭⚛️]

After 10 years of black hole science, Stephen Hawking is proven right Researchers have spent 10 years improving the massive detectors they use to catch shockwaves from colliding black holes, and now the science is precise enough to test one of Stephen Hawking's key idea...

Overall, researchers have been surprised by how many merging black holes they have seen, says gravitational wave researcher Gabriela González with Louisiana State University.
www.npr.org/2025/09/11/n...

Updated sky localization. 90% area 950 sq deg.

Updated three-dimensional volume localization. Distance 1.1 Gpc.

Latest #GravitationalWave candidate #S250911ac

If real, the source is probably a binary black hole (chirp mass ~5.5–11 solar masses)

False alarm rate 1 per 5.3 yr
GraceDB gracedb.ligo.org/superevents/...
GCN gcn.nasa.gov/circulars/41... gcn.nasa.gov/circulars/41...
Rating 🍨🦒

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Happy Birthday, LIGO. Now Drop Dead.

www.nytimes.com/2025/09/10/s...

Doing some inventory on maintenance Tuesday. A few hours every Tuesday is devoted to tasks that would otherwise interfere with observing. In this case, finding parts next to the beam tubes (the tube visible is the 300m cavity associated with the frequency dependent squeezing) @ LIGO - Livingston

Installing the handle plate on a PSAM (piezo electric suspended active matching stage) in order to install it in a double suspension. The PSAMS are used for fine alignment and control of the cavities @ LIGO - Livingston