  The first detection of gravitational waves from the binary neutron star
merger GW170817 by the LIGO-Virgo Collaboration has provided fundamental new
insights into the astrophysical site for r-process nucleosynthesis and on the
nature of dense neutron-star matter. The detected gravitational wave signal
depends upon the tidal distortion of the neutron stars as they approach merger.
We report on relativistic numerical simulations of the approach to binary
merger in the conformally flat, quasi-circular orbit approximation. We show
that this event serves as a calibration to the quasi-circular approximation and
a confirmation of the validity of the conformally flat approximation to the
three-metric. We then examine how the detected chirp depends upon the adopted
equation of state. This establishes a new efficient means to constrain the
nuclear equation of state in binary neutron star mergers.
