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Joe Giaime

@giaime.net

234 followers 164 following 54 posts

Professor, Physics and Astronomy (LSU), LIGO Livingston observatory head (Caltech). Content here is my personal take, not representing my organizations.

Posts Replies Media

Joe Giaime @giaime.net · 18/08/2026

Still one of my favorites.

DVORAK
SERENADE OP 22
NOTTURNO OP40
WALDESRUHE
(SILENT WOODS)

DOUGLAS DAVIS CELLO
DELOS
GERARD SCHWARZ, CONDUCTOR
LOS ANGELES CHAMBER ORCHESTRA

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Joe Giaime @giaime.net · 12/02/2026

In addition to the main announcement in Washington DC of LIGO's discovery 10 years ago (yesterday), the two observatory sites held announcement events, including the one pictured here in Livingston, Louisiana.

View of auditorium with around 150 people present for 2016 announcement of gravitational wave discovery.

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Joe Giaime @giaime.net · 23/01/2026

Hello from a grey heron at LIGO Livingston Observatory!

Grey Heron looking for snacks, walking along the rim of a pond.

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Joe Giaime @giaime.net · 18/11/2025

This morning marked the end of the fourth LIGO - Virgo - KAGRA observational run's third segment, O4c. Here's how it looked in LIGO Livingston's control room.

A group of smiling people—scientists, engineers, detector operators and other observatory specialists—post in LIGO Livingston's control room. Video displays on the wall and workstations show various real-time data relevant to the run. Also visible are three clocks: GPS seconds, UTC and local (CDT).

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Joe Giaime @giaime.net · 19/10/2025

Thanks to jorgepullin.bsky.social, proof that LIGO Livingston's guardian alligator is on duty.

a modest-sized alligator suns itself near a green body of water. This is nothing to worry about.

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Joe Giaime @giaime.net · 05/10/2025

Let's see what the (US) Amazon iPhone app showed me recently when I was browsing for Szalzi books. Here is the product page for Rouge Guide to Money Online. There were other views available, mostly pants.

Screencap of the Amazon app, showing a photo of pants instead of a book.

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Joe Giaime @giaime.net · 15/09/2025

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

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.

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Joe Giaime @giaime.net · 15/09/2025

Not quite. See 2. in the screencap. If you are just a fun-loving pedant, peace.

po di um (po'dē-am)
* n.
pl. podiums or po dia (-de-a)
1. An elevated platform, as for an orchestra conductor or public speaker.
2. A stand for holding the notes of a public speaker; a lectern.

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Joe Giaime @giaime.net · 15/09/2025

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.

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.

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Joe Giaime @giaime.net · 13/09/2025

Gabriela González gives the keynote at LIGO Livingston’s celebration of the 10th anniversary of our detection of gravitational waves.

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Joe Giaime @giaime.net · 12/01/2025

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