Introduction

A few weeks ago we had a new discovery of gravitational waves from the collision of two black holes. This isn't the first gravitational wave detection, but it still teaches us some new things about physics. Today we want to give you all of the background and context that you need to really appreciate this discovery. We'll talk about what gravitational waves are, why it's so hard to detect them, and we'll talk aboutWhat this recent detection teaches us about black holes.