In the same way that we have learned about the universe by observing it across the full electromagnetic spectrum, we expect to learn as much or more by attempting to observe the universe across the fullgravitational spectrum. This has resulted in many exciting ideas for how to measure the high-frequency part of the gravitational spectrum. In this talk, we will discuss the basics of gravitational waves and their detection at the standard quantum limit. A corollary of this basic discussion will be a heuristic limit on our ability to detect cosmogenic gravitational waves at high frequencies with existing and near-future technology.