LIGO is described as working as an interferometer, like a Michelson-Morley interferometer but with many reflections along the arms to increase the sensitivity. In MMs work it was assumed that the mirrors were held in a rigid relationship and so differences in light speed along the orthogonal arms...

Given a black hole with mass of the Milky Way (1.6x10^42 kg), I built a frame that 1 m above the event horizon. I am jumping from this frame my legs down (since I am afraid to dive into a dangerous object my head down). As I understand, the tidal forces at this place are not yet dangerously pulli...