Gravitational Waves with LIGO & Precision Tests of the Gravitational Law
Prof. Dr. Frank Ohme (MPI for Gravitational Physics, Hannover)

Centuries after Newton described a gravitational force, Einstein revolutionised our understanding of space, time and gravity in his general theory of relativity. Another 100 years later marked the beginning of a new era of astronomy, in which spacetime oscillations (a.k.a. gravitational waves) are used to detect the inspiral and merger of the most compact objects in the Universe. In my talk, I will review the methods and results of 10 years of gravitational-wave astronomy that saw already about 300 detections, most of them of black-hole mergers. I will discuss some insights and open questions that emerged from those observations and illustrate that Einstein's picture still holds for these most violent cosmic collisions.