Professor Sir James Hough (Associate Director Institute for Gravitational Research) will review progress in the field of gravitational wave detection. We will ride the wave of discovery from the first days of the aluminium bar detectors to the present time where the laser interferometer detectors Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo have allowed gravitational waves to be detected and are opening up a new field of gravitational multi-messenger astrophysics.

Many experimental challenges had to be overcome and new challenges are presenting themselves as we look to further enhance the performance of ground based detectors and look to lower frequencies with the space based detector LISA.

Professor Sir James Hough FRS (Jim) is a graduate of the University of Glasgow where he became Professor of Experimental Physics in 1986 and is the emeritus holder of the Kelvin Chair of Natural Philosophy. Currently he is a Research Professor in Natural Philosophy at the University of Glasgow.