This experiment not detecting gravity waves might not be too big a deal -- &quot;Oh, there just aren&#x27;t as many sources of gravity waves floating around as we thought.&quot;<p>Eventually, though, a conclusion that gravity waves don&#x27;t exist would be enormous. It would completely upend mainstream theories of gravity, which <i>all</i> posit gravity waves (of some sort.)<p>In fact, I&#x27;d say the only reason we&#x27;re looking for gravity waves is to tick a box -- we don&#x27;t even consider the possibility that they don&#x27;t occur, we just think it would be cool to have seen one.