From: r_delaney2001@yahoo.com   
      
   On February 23,  gghe...@gmail.com wrote:   
   >>> I atended a presentation of the LIGO discovery last week,   
   >>> by the lead engineer on the interferometry, the limiting   
   >>> factor on the whole shebang   
   >>> At conclusion, he forecast a schedule of long term performance   
   >>> improvements.  One of these, 10 years out, is the use of silicon,   
   >>> or silicon oxide, mirrors.   
   >   
   > > Probably that as a single crystal with a very low dislocation density,   
   > > it should have essentially zero residual stress and hence zero creep.   
   >   
   > I was visiting caltech ~2002-3? and talking with a staff/physics   
   > guy. He runs advanced labs 1/2 time and works on ligo  1/2 time.   
   > He said one of the issue's was 1/f type noise due to thermal   
   > relaxations somewhere in the mirror mounts... (or something like that.)   
      
   The speaker was Rana Adhikari, Caltech faculty.   
   He's been working on this for 20 years.  He told   
   some personal stories of advisors' counsel to   
   avoid the LIGO project, which was likely a dead   
   end, technically and careerwise, as grav. waves   
   would never be detected.   
      
   Interestingly, he's a pure experimentalist.  Later, he   
   directed all theoretical questions regarding relativity   
   to Kip Thorn, who was also present.   
      
   --   
   Rich   
      
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