Rainer Weiss, Kips S. Thorne and Barry C. Barish have succeeded in making one of Einsten’s predictions come true a century earlier: detecting gravitational waves, ripples in the fabric of space-time . Since they launched the project for its detection in the eighties – the construction of the Laser Interferometry Observatory of Gravitational Waves (LIGO) -, together with the collaboration of the late Ronald Drever , their work has obtained not one, but three tests that these waves exist , through three detections since 2016. The last, a few weeks ago. All three have been awarded the 2017 Princess of Asturias Award for Scientific Research.
The first detection of gravitational waves came from the collision of two black holes of unknown characteristics until that moment and has marked the beginning of a new field of astronomy , gravitational wave astronomy. A contribution that represents a milestone in science, since it has allowed to validate one of the pillars of modern physics, Einsten’s Theory of Relativity.
Rainer Weiss
(Berlin, September 29, 1932). He studied Physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he graduated in 1955 and received his doctorate in 1962. He was a professor at Tufts University and a researcher at Princeton, before returning to MIT, where he developed his entire career and is a professor emeritus of Physical. He pioneered the measurement of the radiation spectrum of the cosmic microwave background , the “traces” of the first moments after the Big Bang observable today. In addition, he is world renowned for inventing the laser interferometric technique that was the basis for the construction of LIGO, the observatory used to detect the famous gravitational waves.
Kip S. Thorne
(Logan, Utah, USA, June 1, 1940). He received a degree in Physics from Caltech in 1962 and a Ph.D. from Princeton in 1965. In 1966 he returned to Caltech as a researcher, where he has developed his entire career. He is the Feynman Emeritus Professor of Theoretical Physics. He is one of the world’s leading experts on the Theory of Relativity . He even served on the Committee for Cooperation in Physics between the United States and the Soviet Union in the late 1970s. He laid down the theoretical foundations of relativistic star pulsations and the gravitational waves they emit , and co-founded the LIGO observatory. Among his many contributions to astrophysics, he has invented various tools to visualize the curvature of space-time.
It is worth highlighting his contribution to dissemination, collaborating with different artists, musicians and filmmakers. He was one of the science advisers on Christopher Nolan’s 2014 movie Interstellar . He later published the book The Science of Interstellar (2014), although ten years earlier he had already published another popular work, Black Holes and Time Warps: Einstein’s Outrageous Legacy.
Barry C. Barish
(Omaha, Nebraska, USA, January 27, 1936). He studied Physics at the University of California at Berkeley, where he graduated in 1957 and received a doctorate in Experimental Particle Physics in 1962. In 1966 he began working at Caltech, where he developed his entire teaching and research career. Since 2005 he has been the Maxine and Ronald Linde Professor Emeritus of Physics. Among his contributions, he highlighted his participation in outstanding experiments using high-energy neutrino collisions to reveal the nucleon’s quark substructure. He is the principal investigator, co-founder and director of LIGO.
References and image: Communication and Press Area of the Princess of Asturias Foundation.
