Rainer Weiss

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Rainer Weiss during Nobel Prize press conference in Stockholm, December 2017

Rainer "Rai" Weiss (Template:IPAc-en Template:Respell, {{#invoke:IPA|main}}; born September 29, 1932) is a German-American physicist, known for his contributions in gravitational physics and astrophysics. He is a professor of physics emeritus at MIT and an adjunct professor at LSU. He is best known for inventing the laser interferometric technique which is the basic operation of LIGO. He was Chair of the COBE Science Working Group.<ref name="Brink2014">Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="NASA">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name="ann">Template:Cite journal</ref>

In 2017, Weiss was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics, along with Kip Thorne and Barry Barish, "for decisive contributions to the LIGO detector and the observation of gravitational waves".<ref name="Nobel">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name="BBC-20171003">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="NYT-20171003">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="NYT-20171003dk">Template:Cite news</ref>

Weiss has helped realize a number of challenging experimental tests of fundamental physics. He is a member of the Fermilab Holometer experiment, which uses a 40m laser interferometer to measure properties of space and time at quantum scale and provide Planck-precision tests of quantum holographic fluctuation.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

Early life and educationEdit

Rainer Weiss was born in Berlin, Germany, the son of Gertrude Loesner and Frederick A. Weiss.<ref name="CV">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> His father, a physician, neurologist, and psychoanalyst, was forced out of Germany by Nazis because he was Jewish and an active member of the Communist Party. His mother, an actress, was Christian.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> His aunt was the sociologist Hilda Weiss.

The family fled first to Prague, but Germany's occupation of Czechoslovakia after the 1938 Munich Agreement caused them to flee again; the philanthropic Stix family of St. Louis helped them obtain visas to enter the United States.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Weiss spent his youth in New York City, where he attended Columbia Grammar School.

He studied at MIT, dropping out at the beginning of his junior year<ref name="Cho2016">Cho, Adrian (August 4, 2016). "Meet the College Dropout who Invented the Gravitational Wave Detector Template:Webarchive", Science. Retrieved May 20, 2019.</ref> with the excuse that he had abandoned his coursework to pursue a romantic relationship with a music student from Chicago.<ref name=":0">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> While this affair was a contributing factor, Weiss's concurrent vacillation between MIT's engineering and physics tracks may also have played a significant role. Jerrold Zacharias, then an influential physicist and MIT professor, intervened, and Weiss, after working as a technician in Zacharias's lab, eventually returned to receive his S.B. degree in 1955. He would complete his Ph.D. in 1962, still with Zacharias as advisor/mentor.<ref name="thesis-weiss-1962">Template:Cite thesis</ref><ref name=":0" />

CareerEdit

He taught at Tufts University from 1960 to 1962, was a postdoctoral scholar at Princeton University from 1962 to 1964, and then joined the faculty at MIT in 1964.<ref name="CV"/>

For Weiss's initial work at MIT, he started a group studying cosmology and gravitation. Needing to develop new technology, particularly in regards to the stabilization of equipment set to measure minute fluctuations, his lab included machine and electronics shop, with a hands-on expectation of his students for fabrication and design.<ref name=":0" />

He had an idea during this period regarding the building of a Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO), but believed that such a machine could not be built with the then current technologies, because it could not "actually" be constructed with sufficient sensitivity.

By 1966, Weiss's tenure at MIT was at risk because of the failure of his group to produce publications. On advice from Bernard Burke, then head of the division on astrophysics in the Physics Department, Weiss recalibrated his standards for submitting articles for publication, eventually finding grounds for publication that he believed met his personal standards as scientifically worthy and publishable. He was then able to qualify for tenure and remain at MIT.<ref name=":0" />

Vietnam Era cuts to science grantsEdit

In 1973, Weiss was forced to pivot with his work as the US military cut funding for any science that was not determined to be "directly relevant to its core mission." Weiss wrote a proposal to the NSF that described "a new way to measure gravitational waves." This was the work that would eventually lead to his 2017 Nobel Prize, though it was many years before the interferometers Weiss and his students built were sensitive enough to actually detect gravitational waves, making for numerous unpleasant doctoral thesis defenses where Weiss's graduate students were unable to present positive (in layman's terms: any) results.<ref name=":0" />

MIT/Caltech collaborationEdit

Weiss at MIT and Kip Thorne at Caltech joined forces in the early 1980s in recognition of the scale of work and resources necessary to bring the gravitational wave project to fulfillment.

In a 2022 interview given to Federal University of Pará in Brazil, Weiss talks about his life and career, the memories of his childhood and youth, his undergraduate and graduate studies at MIT, and the future of gravitational waves astronomy.<ref>Template:Cite video</ref>

AchievementsEdit

Weiss brought two fields of fundamental physics research from birth to maturity: characterization of the cosmic background radiation,<ref name="ann"/> and interferometric gravitational wave observation.

In 1973 he made pioneering measurements of the spectrum of the cosmic microwave background radiation, taken from a weather balloon, showing that the microwave background exhibited the thermal spectrum characteristic of the remnant radiation from the Big Bang.<ref name="Cho2016"/> He later became co-founder and science advisor of the NASA Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) satellite,<ref name="Brink2014"/> which made detailed mapping of the radiation.

Weiss also pioneered the concept of using lasers for an interferometric gravitational wave detector, suggesting that the path length required for such a detector would necessitate kilometer-scale arms. He built a prototype in the 1970s, following earlier work by Robert L. Forward.<ref>Cho, Adrian (October 3, 2017). "Ripples in space: U.S. trio wins physics Nobel for discovery of gravitational waves Template:Webarchive," Science. Retrieved May 20, 2019.</ref><ref>Cervantes-Cota, Jorge L., Galindo-Uribarri, Salvador, and Smoot, George F. (2016). "A Brief History of Gravitational Waves," Universe, 2, no. 3, 22. Retrieved May 20, 2019.</ref> He co-founded the NSF LIGO (gravitational-wave detection) project,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> which was based on his report "A study of a long Baseline Gravitational Wave Antenna System".<ref>Linsay, P., Saulson, P., and Weiss, R. (1983). "A Study of a Long Baseline Gravitational Wave Antenna System Template:Webarchive, NSF. Retrieved May 20, 2019.</ref>

Both of these efforts couple challenges in instrument science with physics important to the understanding of the Universe.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

In February 2016, he was one of the four scientists of LIGO/Virgo collaboration presenting at the press conference for the announcement that the first direct gravitational wave observation had been made in September 2015.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="PRL-20160211">Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name="Naeye">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="Nature_11Feb16">Template:Cite journal</ref>Template:Efn

Personal lifeEdit

Classical music was a profound influence and shaping force in Weiss's life, from his early youth in an immigrant family, through his shared love of Beethoven's Spring Sonata, which cemented his deep personal relationship with mentor Jerrold Zacharias.<ref name=":0" />

He married and had his first child while still in graduate school, "the best time of my life."

Honors and awardsEdit

Rainer Weiss has been recognized by numerous awards including:

In 2006, with John C. Mather, he and the COBE team received the Gruber Prize in Cosmology.<ref name="NASA"/>
In 2007, with Ronald Drever, he was awarded the APS Einstein Prize for his work.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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In 2016 and 2017, for the achievement of gravitational waves detection, he received:

The Special Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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Gruber Prize in Cosmology,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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Shaw Prize,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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Kavli Prize in Astrophysics<ref>Template:Cite press release</ref>
The Harvey Prize together with Kip Thorne and Ronald Drever.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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The Smithsonian magazine's American Ingenuity Award in the Physical Science category, with Kip Thorne and Barry Barish.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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The Willis E. Lamb Award for Laser Science and Quantum Optics, 2017.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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Princess of Asturias Award (2017) (jointly with Kip Thorne and Barry Barish).<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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The Nobel Prize in Physics (2017) (jointly with Kip Thorne and Barry Barish)<ref name="Nobel"/>
Fellowship of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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In 2018, he was awarded the American Astronomical Society's Joseph Weber Award for Astronomical Instrumentation "for his invention of the interferometric gravitational-wave detector, which led to the first detection of long-predicted gravitational waves."<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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