[PSF-Community] [gravitational-waves] A big thanks to the contributors in Python

[Khaled Monsoor]

hello everyone in this wonderful community,

probably, we already know about the recent confirmation by LIGO
<http://www.ligo.org/> about existence of "gravitational waves", a major
prediction by the "theory of relativity" by Albert Einstein. It is a huge
milestone to human endeavour to understand nature.

what we may or may not know that Python was the de-facto language of
software components of the experimentation. It was extensively used in
day-to-day operations, from orchestrating the instruments[1], gathering
data, analytics, to generating the finally published pretty graphs[2].
Usage of Python, IPython notebook & matplotlib was extensive among the
team-members of LIGO.[3], [4]

i am not a part of LIGO, or any of the member organisations.
Rather, as a common enthusiast of natural-sciences as well as a open-source
believer, I would like to take a moment to thank every single contributor
of Python. Please keep up pushing your commits.
We facilitated something bigger than us.

i would also like to take a moment to remember our lost friend, John D.
Hunter, the creator of matplotlib. Whom we lost in 2012 in a battle with
cancer. Dear John, you are long gone, but you will live generations through
2-D matplotlib plots.


Thanks everyone.

Khaled Monsoor,
a common user of Python


refs:
[1]:
https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/45g8qu/we_are_the_ligo_scientific_collaboration_and_we/czxnlux
[2]: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ca8jlVIWcAUmeP8.png
[3]: https://losc.ligo.org/s/events/GW150914/GW150914_tutorial.html
[4]: https://github.com/ligo-cbc
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