by Group 7
English Themes
The LIGO Project itself has many cultural and educational influences that make this project so wide to a great amount of people thanks to its facilities located in such places like India and its cultural advantages and disadvantages which I’ll talk about later and thanks to the educational system that LIGO created that helps and teaches the people that are curious enough. So cultural influences comes first.
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LIGO India and the culture
The LIGO Project is making a lot of good work to make to world itself a better place, but it isn’t only the way you’re thinking about, not with the gravitational waves and stuff; but the Project itself is expanding and moving to another countries and places that would not be possible; but LIGO went above and is making our cultures unite and giving the chance to other countries that are not in the USA to experience the phenomenon of gravitational waves with the help of LIGO, and one of those is India.
So, INDIGO or IndIGO (Indian Initiative in Gravitational-wave Observations) is a consortium of Indian gravitational-wave physicists.This is an initiative to set up advanced experimental facilities for a multi-institutional observatory project in gravitational-wave astronomy located near Aundha Nagnath, Hingoli District, Maharashtra.
Since 2009, the IndIGO Consortium has been planning a roadmap for gravitational-wave astronomy and a phased strategy towards Indian participation in realizing a gravitational-wave observatory in the Asia-Pacific region. IndIGO is the Indian partner (along with the LIGO Laboratory in US) in planning the LIGO-India project. Laboratory, in collaboration with the U.S. National Science Foundation and Advanced LIGO partners from the U.K, Germany and Australia, have offered to provide all of the designs and hardware for one of the three planned Advanced LIGO detectors to be installed, commissioned, and operated by an Indian team of scientists in a facility to be built in India.
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The Predicted date of commission is in 2024.
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The major purpose of IndIGO is to set up the LIGO-India detector, which would help enhance the network of gravitational wave detectors worldwide. The network includes the two LIGO detectors in the US (in Hanford and Livingston), the Virgo and GEO600 detectors in Europe, and the KAGRA detector in Japan. By simultaneous detection of the same event on these multiple detectors, a precise location in the sky can be pinpointed for the source of the detected waves. Another important goal of IndIGO is to train scientists for successfully operating the LIGO-India detector, when commissioned, which is a great deal for the educational system that India itself has. IndIGO has currently over 70 member scientists and is hiring more and more to help India.
But what is actually the need for a LIGO Project in India? Well right now, with just three detectors, there is huge uncertainty in determining where in the sky the disturbance came from. Observations from a new detector in a far-off position will help locate the source of the gravitational waves more accurately; that and help the presence of the power of Physics in India to grow stronger.
This project in India gives to the country a lot of possibilities and benefits such as:
1. More exposure:
Over the next decade, gravitational physics is expected to create a lot of new science. A single jolt to the Ligo equipment was enough for physicists to figure out an enormous amount of information about its source. The new Ligo observatory, in combination with its partners, will let scientists probe deep questions about black holes and neutron stars. "The new detector will improve chances of doing science in India," says P Ajith, reader at ICTS. "It will provide exposure to areas that are not available now." When India builds the observatory, some of this technology will be available on a platter for the country. When Indian institutions and companies put them together and develop what is not available, they will take precision engineering to a new level in the country. As well at creating new opportunities for people that are specialized in this field but don’t have a job.
​2. Attractive project:
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The engineering and assembly of the equipment have to be done by Indian industry, which is a reason why the project looked attractive to bureaucrats and politicians in the country. Scientists think that this experience can lift industry capabilities in precision engineering in several areas, and especially in optical engineering.Buried in the Ligo observatory would be several technologies that will be useful to industry. Several years from now, some of them could have the capabilities to build NextGen particle accelerators for medicine and science, or high-precision lasers for measurement and medical optics. It is hard to figure out where scientific instrumentation will take technology. So far, GPS has been the big spin-off from Einstein’s theory of gravity. A few such applications may be waiting in the new era of gravitational waves.
3. Ligo India gets the world’s attention:
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It is not often that an Indian project is greeted with joy all over the world. It was sweet music to all gravitational physicists around the world. India announced the decision in the evening, and by next morning Ligo had tweeted: "Ligo India is a go. What a great week for gravitational waves.’’This tweet was immediately retweeted by many people around the world, including some prominent physicists. So, with all this India will be in the top of the world thanks to the fame of the LIGO Project and with the tourism that it creates.
Educational Influences
In this project there are a lot of educational influences involved and that thanks to LIGO. The LIGO Project in the USA and the one that is being constructed in India have a lot of educational resources. Whether you're an educator, a parent, or an interested student, you can be a part of the education system of LIGO. There's something fun and educational there for everyone.
There are a lot of things that are incorporated in the LIGO education system, such as:
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Classroom Activities - All sorts of activities you can bring to your classroom that concentrate on LIGO, or concepts related to LIGO (such as, waves).
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Field Trips to the LIGO Facilities;
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Try This at Home - These are some activities LIGO related that can be done at home that are available on their website
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Ask a LIGO-ite - On the LIGO website, there’s a link that takes you to an online chat with a LIGO worker to answer your questions.
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Bring LIGO to Your Classroom - If you can't bring your class to LIGO, then they may be able to bring a LIGO educator to you, if you know how to contact them;
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Teacher Professional Development - Visit this page: https://www.ligo.caltech.edu/page/teacher-professional-development to learn about the teacher professional development programs offered through each of their two observatories.
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Recommended Reading and Video - These educational videos of their website are some of the best resources related to the science behind LIGO;
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Detection Education Resources - Education materials related to the detection of gravitational waves by LIGO;
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Detection science summaries: Short overviews of LIGO detections tailored to a casual reader;
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LIGO Educator's Guide (a 24-page introductory guide to LIGO and gravitational waves, with 2 simple activities suitable for classroom use) available on their website.
Ligo's Informal STEM Learning Legacy
In addition to its work on the cutting edge of physics, LIGO has also been a pioneer in the field of informal STEM education (ISE). With support from the National Science Foundation (operations grant PHY-0757058), LIGO’s Science Education Center in Livingston Parish, Louisiana, engages the community in a variety of ways, including professional development for teachers, activities for K-16 students and programs for the general public and community-based groups. These public engagement efforts have also provided settings for ISE research, for example a study exploring parent-child interactions with active prolonged engagement (APE) exhibits in the Center.
For over a decade the LIGO's Science Education Center has partnered with the Exploratorium, in San Francisco, California and Southern University of Baton Rouge (SUBR) to develop teacher professional learning programs and bring interactive exhibits about LIGO-related science to southern Louisiana. Research on how and what teachers learn in these types of experiences can be found on the Exploratorium’s Teacher Institute web page and by searching on InformalScience.org. The Baton Rouge Area Foundation was recently awarded a collaborative research grant (PHY-1506037) along with SUBR from the NSF Integrative Activities in Physics program to build and expand on the work of this collaboration between a Historically Black College or University (HBCU), large research facility and informal science center to broaden participation in STEM. Research on this multilayered partnership will contribute to the literature on the impacts of leveraging the resources of research laboratories for educational purposes.
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Beyond contributing educational expertise, the Exploratorium worked with LIGO scientists to design a kinetic art installation along the facility’s 85 ft. long façade called “Wave Wall.” A moving sculpture made up of 122 free-hanging, magnetically-coupled aluminum pendulae, Wave Wall is activated by the wind or by LIGO visitors (via ropes and pulleys). In this exhibit, the themes and phenomena in the Science Education Center--wave motion and propagation, gravity, resonance, and light--are expressed aesthetically in action.