Our interferometer simulation Finesse has become open source! Not only can you download the source code, but we have also setup a professional Redmine project page for Finesse with a bug tracker, a Wiki, user forums and an easy way to view the code online. Have a look around and get involved! We are happy to help by answering questions in the forums and welcome any kind of contribution to the development of Finesse.

In addition the main Finesse page has been improved, now hosting more examples and links to useful tools. Please let me know if you have an interesting Finesse example to share!

For a while I have been posting the odd photo from around the gravitational wave community on my tumblr blog: http://gwoptics.tumblr.com/. If you would like to share some interesting pictures, please let me know!

Do you sometimes need an illustration of an optical layout? Then ComponentLibrary might be something for you!

This free and open vector graphics library of optics components has been used to illustrate a great many notes, papers and PhD thesis. Now, it's your turn to upgrade your optical layouts! ComponentLibray has been developed by Alexander Franzen at the Albert Einstein Institute in Hannover.

Our first paper on using Processing for science outreach has been submitted and is now available on the pre-print server: http://arxiv.org/abs/1111.3899. The paper describes some of the background for the existence of this webpage, i.e. the idea to develop small computer applications to be used for educational purposes and to teach gravitational waves physics. Our Processing sketches are the main result of this activity with the two computer-games related to gravitational wave science: Black Hole Pong and Space Time Quest as the highlights.

A new version of Space Time Quest has been released today. We fixed some bugs and changed the way the final score is computed: instead of a detection range you now collect events, i.e. detections of supernovae, neutron stars and black holes. You can see the new score system in action in our online hall of fame.

As part of our effort to translate our material into other languages Space Time Quest is now also available in Spanish!

Our GW Ebook, a collection of short texts explaining the basics of gravitational wave detection, is now available in several languages! Do you ever wonder how to say `A Laser is a very special type of light source' in Spanish, German, Italian or Chinese? Well, here is your chance to find out! Also, if you have non-English speaking friends who are interested in science or astronomy, maybe you could introduce them to gravitational waves using these pages.

Today, Nature Physics has published a paper about the implementation of squeezed light at the GEO 600 detector: `A gravitational wave observatory operating beyond the quantum shot-noise limit', http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/NPHYS2083. For the first time the squeezed light technology has been used to increase the sensitivity of an astronomical observatory. The same technology is scheduled to be tested at the Advanced LIGO detectors.

Research groups from the University of Birmingham and the University of Glasgow are currently testing the feasibility of using ring-shaped laser beams for future gravitational wave detectors.

This video by Paul Fulda provides a behind-the-scenes view of an ongoing research programme. The preliminary results shown here have been presented by Borja Sorazu at the Amaldi conference in Cardiff 2011.

It has been very quiet for a few months. But, never fear, we are working hard as usual; being busy with the less visible and dirty work of debugging, error fixing and re-formatting. Today I have updated the layout of the Einstein Telescope to the latest version of Sozi. We are also working on translating some of our material into other (non-English) languages. So, stay tuned!

The gwoptics.org pages have been reviewed by Physics World! If you happen to have the May 2011 issue laying around, check page 41, it makes a short but interesting read. If you cannot get the print version, apparently an online version of the review is available as well.

Our games Space Time Quest and Black Hole Pong are now listed amongst other LIGO related games on the LIGO outreach pages. Time to start working on Black Hole Battle, the new incarnation of Black Hole Pong.

Space Time Quest is here! You can now download the game and see all the high scores online. Build your own gravitational wave detector and see if you can beat the scores of the experts!

Space Time Quest is a manager-simulation type game. The player can use a limited budget to design a gravitational wave detector. The goal is to maximise the sensitivity by adjusting several subsystem parameters correctly. This game has been developed as part of our outreach programme in the Gravitational Wave Group in Birmingham; our aim was to create a fun game that is easy to play, looks good and gives some insight into the complexity of gravitational wave detectors.

At the moment the game does not come with much explanation; however there is a simple 'how to play' video to get you started.

Do you know the sound of a gravitational wave? Listen to this! Inspiral Signal is an online applet that shows the orbit of two colliding black holes and plays the characteristic chirp of the space time ripples they cause.

A computer plus webcam create an `augmented reality': a virtual pendulum which hangs from the marker and follows its motion, and the motion of your hands, as a real pendulum would do. More info, a video and the application itself are available on the Augmented Reality Pendulum page.

This site is now one year old and we have assembled quite a bit of material. Much of this site is dedicated to bring gravitational wave science to the people. Thus it is time to reach out: you can follow us on twitter at @gwoptics and @GW_Birmingham to get news and info about our activities! Please spread the word!

After a two years long break, I have now uploaded a new version of SimTools. Previous versions mainly provided functions to automatically parse and/or create text input files for other simulation programs, such as Finesse. Version 0.6 now included many more mathematical functions related to Gaussian beams and optical simulations.

Another fun application to be used in science events and exhibitions has been uploaded. You are Einstein is a Processing application that gives you and your friends the Einstein look.

Do you know how a gravitational wave detector works? Have a look at our E-book on gravitational wave detection and find out! This is a collection of very short texts and some illustrations describing in simple terms what gravitational waves are and how we use lasers to detect them.

A summer student project this year has led to another Processing program worth sharing: This is Black Hole Pong, a remake of the classic Pong with a new twist. It is of course an educational game, illustrating the ways of gravity - but you probably won't even notice that because it is also very fast and quite difficult.

We will use a few new Processing sketches in the exhibition `Looking for Black Holes with Lasers' by the Gravitational Wave Group. More details about the software will be posted here after the exhibition.

The full source code is now available for the Processing applets: Pendulum, Stimulated Emission, Michelson Interferometer 1, Gaussian Beam Viewer and Cavity Calculator 1.

The download page for Luxor, the graphical user interface for Finesse had disappeared some time ago and a new one needs to be setup. Jan Harms send me the files to host them here in the meantime and you can find Luxor now on this new download page. Give it a go.

From today on, our own library for the Processing language is available for download. The library gwoptics provides 2D and 3D plotting capabilities, which come in handy for optical simulations. The best example for its use is the Gaussian Beam Viewer. The library (as Processing) is open source and comes with basic documentation and examples.

Today, a new review article Interferometer Techniques for Gravitational-Wave Detection has been published in Living Reviews in Relativity. The article is free to access, available as a pdf file or as an online webpage, and it covers a lot of background material for learning about interferometry and optics used for gravitational wave detectors.

If you need a break from the optical simulations or are looking for first steps in programming for kids, you should have a look at our Scratch rocket game - and don't forget to shoot the asteroids!

A new version of Finesse is now available for download. The main changes to previous versions are the possibility to use mirror maps and an updated manual, see the file CHANGES for a detailed list of changes.

The GW detectors page features a addition to the series of Processing sketches explaining parts of a gravitational wave detector: the Stimulated Emission sketch illustrates how a simple laser works through the process of stimulated emission.