Joe Giaime
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Joe Giaime
@giaime.net
170 followers 120 following 32 posts
Professor, Physics and Astronomy (LSU), LIGO Livingston observatory head (Caltech). Content here is my personal take, not representing my organizations.
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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).
November 18, 2025 at 5:14 PM
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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.
October 19, 2025 at 6:23 PM
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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.
October 5, 2025 at 10:48 PM
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@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.
September 15, 2025 at 6:13 PM
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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.
September 15, 2025 at 5:28 PM
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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. Group of people seated in an auditorium
September 15, 2025 at 3:30 PM
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Gabriela González gives the keynote at LIGO Livingston’s celebration of the 10th anniversary of our detection of gravitational waves.
September 13, 2025 at 3:47 PM
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Owl, perched on a branch in a forest.
January 12, 2025 at 1:49 AM