Starting in 1987, Adalberto Giazotto attempted to launch an initiative to build a European gravitational wave antenna, to compete with the one (there would later be two) under construction in the United States since 1984. The Germans and the British soon joined the American initiative. Italy and France were the ones leading the gravitational wave antenna in Europe. It would be built in Pisa, where Giazotto conducted his experiments with stationary pendulums, which would prove crucial for holding the detector’s mirrors and lenses stationary.
