What good is a gravity wave?

[Wizardsblade]

Are we looking for gravity waves to help prove theories or are there possible practical uses for them? ie would the ability to create gravity waves help us with a new power source or space travel or do our laundry? 8)

 

[lbrits]

You could use it just like any other telescope.

 

[robphy]

Are we looking for gravity waves to help prove theories or are there possible practical uses for them? ie would the ability to create gravity waves help us with a new power source or space travel or do our laundry? 8)

Yes... first to test General Relativity's prediction of gravitational waves.
As lbrits suggests, it could be used another way to study remote astrophysical objects.
It may be that other practical uses will emerge after the detection is successful and the technology of detection improves.

Things take time. (Did someone foresee the use of television and cell-phone communications before the production and detection of [electromagnetic] radio waves in the late 1800s?)