This article reviews current efforts and plans for gravitational-wave
detection, the gravitational-wave sources that might be detected, and the
information that the detectors might extract from the observed waves. Special
attention is paid to (i) the LIGO/VIRGO network of earth-based, kilometer-scale
laser interferometers, which is now under construction and will operate in the
high-frequency band (1 to 104 Hz), and (ii) a proposed
5-million-kilometer-long Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA), which would
fly in heliocentric orbit and operate in the low-frequency band (10−4 to
1 Hz). LISA would extend the LIGO/VIRGO studies of stellar-mass (M∼2 to
300M⊙​) black holes into the domain of the massive black holes
(M∼1000 to 108M⊙​) that inhabit galactic nuclei and quasars.Comment: Latex; 25 pages, 14 figures. Figures are in eps files that are
bundled together in a tarred, compressed, and uuencoded form; figures are
inserted into text via a "special" command rather than psfig or epsf. Uses a
style file "snow.sty" that is bundled with the figure