The character of Dr. Sheldon Cooper from American sitcom, The Big Bang Theory (TBBT), has been credited for making ‘geeks’ look cool! A Laser Interferometer Gravitational -wave Observatory (LIGO) prototype to be constructed at Indian Institute of Technology, Madras (IITM) could be your chance to become Dr. Cooper in reality. The project also known as LIGO-India will be a third generation LIGO.

After physicists at LIGO in United States of America announced the evidence of gravitational waves on February 11, 2016, ripples of excitement spread in the scientific community. This is because gravitation waves can answer question about creation of the Universe. Presence of gravitational waves was first predicted by Albert Einstein, the Nobel-winning physicist in 1915.

IITM will construct the LIGO prototype at its new research campus at Thaiyur. The project is being piloted with help from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). MIT was also part of LIGO constructed in US. LIGO-India will significantly improve ability of scientists to uncover the source of gravitational waves and analyse the signals.  Prof. Anil Prabhakar of Electrical Engineering, IITM said, “The project would help undergraduate, post-graduate and research scholars contribute to the research in Physics. Engineering students will have a big role to play in setting up this facility because of state of the art machinery involved.” Prof. Prabhakar further added, “The actual observatory may be set up in Maharashtra, Rajasthan or Madhya Pradesh.”

 Kirti Sridhankar, a research scholar formerly with Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), Mumbai said, “Facilities like the one coming up at IITM provide students an opportunity to experiment and contribute to pioneering research. Research is not only about verifying what has been proved in theory. It is also about discovering something new and overcoming problems it has. Being presented with this opportunity to challenge the known is what I as a student look forward to.”  Kirti had a word of advice about expecting early results. He said, “It is foolhardy to expect immediate results from such research. But one can be sure that spin-offs produced while conducting such research are important. Like the CERN experiment which gave us the World Wide Web.”  

The technology used in this project has social value. The high power lasers used in the project have application in the material processing and healthcare industry.  LIGO will use very sensitive sensors which can help in better earthquake and tsunami monitoring systems. The project will also involve analysing huge quantity of data analysis which may revolutionise the way we use data.