Gravitational waves from binary black holes

Abstract

It is almost a century since Einstein predicted the existence of gravitational waves as one of the consequences of his general theory of relativity. A brief historical overview including Chandrasekhar’s contribution to the subject is first presented. The current status of the experimental search for gravitational waves and the attendant theoretical insights into the two-body problem in general relativity arising from computations of gravitational waves from binary black holes are then broadly reviewed.