A history of the experiments for the search of gravitational waves, with emphasis on the experiments made by the Rome group, is given. The search for gravitational waves was initiated by the brilliant scientific acumen of Joseph Weber. In this paper we start from the early times of the resonant detectors at room temperature and continue with the cryogenic resonant detectors: STANFORD, ALLEGRO, AURIGA, EXPLORER, NAUTILUS and NIOBE. These cryogenic detectors reached a sensitivity able to observe gravitational waves generated by the conversion of about 0.001 solar masses in the Galaxy. This was an improvement by a factor of a few thousand in energy with respect to the early room temperature experiments. No clear signals due to gravitational waves have been observed with this technique. This research, that has lasted four decades, has paved the way to the more sensitive detectors for gravitational waves, the long-arm laser interferometers, which announced, on February 12th 2016, the first observation of gravitational waves.

中文翻译：

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共振探测器搜索引力波的实验的诞生和初步发展

给出了寻找重力波的实验历史，重点介绍了罗马小组所做的实验。寻找引力波是由约瑟夫·韦伯（Joseph Weber）精明的科学头脑发起的。在本文中，我们从室温下的共振检测器的早期开始，继续进行低温共振检测器：STANFORD，ALLEGRO，AURIGA，EXPLORER，NAUTILUS和NIOBE。这些低温探测器的灵敏度能够观察到由银河系中约0.001太阳质量的转换产生的引力波。相对于早期的室温实验，这种方法的能耗提高了几千倍。用这种技术没有观察到由于引力波引起的清晰信号。这项研究持续了四十年，