It is a truth universally acknowledged, that at the heart of every discovery in gravitational physics is ripe fruit colliding with people’s heads. The unacknowledged reality is somewhat different: as our understanding of the universe has evolved, we need to dig deeper for insight — this means that today’s process of discovery is often long and laborious, requires a diversity of expertise, and has to be extracted through the creation and use of specialized discovery tools: scientific instruments. The task of the designer of such instruments is akin to laying down the pavement for science to walk on — in whichever direction it needs to be laid. This takes its builders over rugged and unexplored terrain and thus its construction requires as much insight, ingenuity, and knowledge as the process of discovery itself. The last century saw the emergence of an unusually adaptable ingredient for the construction of such tools: software. This special issue tells the story of the role software scientific instruments played in the most significant discovery of modern times: the detection of gravitational waves.
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