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Renowned experimental physicist, Nobel laureate and Massachusetts Institute of Technology Professor Emeritus Rainer Weiss, handed away on Aug. 25 on the age of 92.
Weiss was integral in confirming the existence of tiny ripples in spacetime referred to as “gravitational waves,” first predicted by Albert Einstein in his 1915 concept of gravity, normal relativity. Weiss achieved this when he conceived the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) with the help of different physics luminaries akin to Kip Thorne and Scottish physicist Ronald Drever. Weiss then went on to steer the group that constructed LIGO, in addition to main the scientists who, on Sept. 14, 2015, made the primary detection of gravitational waves. The sign, designated GW150914, was the results of two black holes colliding and merging 1.4 billion light-years away.
Weiss shared the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics for this breakthrough, with LIGO and its international partners, the Virgo gravitational wave interferometer, and the Kamioka Gravitational Wave Detector (KAGRA) happening to make many extra detections of gravitational waves created by colliding black holes and merging neutron stars. Remarkably, in confirming the existence of gravitational waves, Weiss each proved Einstein proper and improper on the identical time. Einstein had been satisfied that these ripples in spacetime had been so faint that no equipment on Earth may ever be delicate sufficient to detect them, displaying simply how revolutionary LIGO was.
Nergis Mavalvala, dean of the MIT School of Science and the Curtis and Kathleen Marble Professor of Astrophysics, labored with Weiss within the Nineteen Nineties to construct an early prototype gravitational wave detector.
“Rai leaves an indelible mark on science and a gaping hole in our lives,” she stated in a press release from MIT. “He will be so missed, but has also gifted us a singular legacy. Every gravitational wave event we observe will remind us of him, and we will smile,” Mavalvala stated.
“I am indeed heartbroken, but also so grateful for having him in my life, and for the incredible gifts he has given us — of passion for science and discovery, but most of all to always put people first.”
A dedicated mentor and trainer, Weiss initially envisioned gravitational wave detectors as a educating support. Weiss informed MIT News in 2017: “What’s the simplest thing I can think of to show these students that you could detect the influence of a gravitational wave?”
Gravitational waves weren’t Weiss’s solely ardour in physics. Weiss developed a exact atomic clock, and was additionally a pioneer within the measurement of a cosmic fossil referred to as the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB), leftover radiation from an occasion simply after the Big Bang.
Weiss not solely devised a option to measure the CMB utilizing a climate balloon, however he was co-founder of the NASA Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) undertaking. Launched to Earth orbit on Nov. 18, 1989, and working till 1993, COBE revolutionized our view of the evolution of the universe and offered essential proof supporting the Big Bang.
“Rai held a singular position in science: He was the creator of two fields — measurements of the CMB and of gravitational waves,” Peter Fisher, former head of the MIT physics division and the Thomas A. Frank Professor of Physics, stated. “His students have gone on to lead both fields and carried Rai’s rigor and decency to both. He not only created a huge part of important science, but he also populated them with people of the highest caliber and integrity.”
Weiss was born in Berlin in 1932, arriving in New York City after he and his household fled Nazi Germany. Growing up in New York, Weiss developed a love of classical music and electronics, incomes cash repairing radios. He completed his undergraduate diploma in 1955 and earned his PhD in 1962.
After creating experiments to check gravity as a part of Robert Dicke’s Princeton University physics group, Weiss returned to MIT in 1964 (he had enrolled earlier however dropped out in his junior yr), the place he based a brand new analysis group devoted to the examine of cosmology and gravity.
In addition to the Nobel Prize, Weiss was honored throughout his profession with a cavalcade of different awards. These included: the Medaille de l’ADION, the 2006 Gruber Prize in Cosmology, the 2007 Einstein Prize of the American Physical Society, a Special Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics, the Gruber Prize in Cosmology, the Shaw Prize in Astronomy, and the Kavli Prize in Astrophysics, the latter three of which he shared with Drever and Thorne.
Weiss emphasised the collaborative nature of physics in humble style whereas discussing his Nobel Prize win at a 2017 MIT press conference.
“The discovery has been the work of a large number of people, many of whom played crucial roles. I view receiving this [award] as sort of a symbol of the various other people who have worked on this,” Weiss stated. “This prize and others that are given to scientists is an affirmation by our society of [the importance of] gaining information about the world around us from reasoned understanding of evidence.”
Weiss is survived by his spouse, Rebecca, his daughter, Sarah, and her husband, Tony, and his son, Benjamin, and his spouse, Carla, in addition to his grandson, Sam, and his spouse, Constance.
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