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Rainer Weiss
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Name
Rainer Weiss
Education
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1962)
Awards
Guggenheim Fellowship for Natural Sciences, US & Canada
Uw frontiers of physics lecture dr rainer weiss fall 2016
Rainer "Rai" Weiss (; [vaɪs]; born September 29, 1932) is an American physicist, known for his contributions in gravitational physics and astrophysics. He is a professor of physics emeritus at MIT. He is best known for inventing the laser interferometric technique which is the basic operation of LIGO. Rainer Weiss was Chair of the COBE Science Working Group.
In 2017, Thorne was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics along with Rainer Weiss and Barry C. Barish "for decisive contributions to the LIGO detector and the observation of gravitational waves".
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Early life and education
Rainer Weiss was born on 29 September 1932 in Berlin, Germany. Fleeing Nazi rule, his family moved first to Prague, in late 1932, and then to the United States, in 1938; his youth was spent in New York City, where he attended Columbia Grammar School. He studied at MIT, and after dropping out in his junior year returned to receive his B.S. in 1955 and Ph.D. in 1962 from Jerrold Zacharias. He taught at Tufts University in 1960–62, was a postdoctoral scholar at Princeton University from 1962–64, and then joined the faculty at MIT in 1964.
Achievements
Weiss brought two fields of fundamental physics research from birth to maturity: characterization of the cosmic background radiation, and interferometric gravitational wave observation.
He made pioneering measurements of the spectrum of the cosmic microwave background radiation, and then was co-founder and science advisor of the NASA COBE (microwave background) satellite.
Weiss also invented the interferometric gravitational wave detector, and co-founded the NSF LIGO (gravitational-wave detection) project.
Both of these efforts couple challenges in instrument science with physics important to the understanding of the Universe.
In February 2016, he was one of the four scientists presenting at the press conference for the announcement that the first direct gravitational wave observation had been made in September 2015, He won the 2017 Nobel Prize for Physics.
Honors and awards
Rainer Weiss has been recognized by numerous awards including:
R. Weiss, H.H. Stroke, V. Jaccarino and D.S. Edmonds (1957). "Magnetic Moments and Hyperfine Structure Anomalies of Cs133, Cs135 and Cs137". Phys. Rev. 105 (2): 590. Bibcode:1957PhRv..105..590S. doi:10.1103/PhysRev.105.590.CS1 maint: Multiple names: authors list (link)
R. Weiss (1961). "Molecular Beam Electron Bombardment Detector". Rev. Sci. Instr. 32 (4): 397. Bibcode:1961RScI...32..397W. doi:10.1063/1.1717386.
R. Weiss & L. Grodzins (1962). "A Search for a Frequency Shift of 14.4 keV Photons on Traversing Radiation Fields". Physics Letters. 1 (8): 342. Bibcode:1962PhL.....1..342W. doi:10.1016/0031-9163(62)90420-1.
Weiss, Rainer (1963). "Stark Effect and Hyperfine Structure of Hydrogen Fluoride". Phys. Rev. 131 (2): 659. Bibcode:1963PhRv..131..659W. doi:10.1103/PhysRev.131.659.
R. Weiss & B. Block (1965). "A Gravimeter to Monitor the OSO Dilational Model of the Earth". J. Geophy. Res. 70 (22): 5615. Bibcode:1965JGR....70.5615W. doi:10.1029/JZ070i022p05615.
R. Weiss & G. Blum (1967). "Experimental Test of the Freundlich Red-Shift Hypothesis". Phys. Rev. 155 (5): 1412. Bibcode:1967PhRv..155.1412B. doi:10.1103/PhysRev.155.1412.
R. Weiss (1967). "Electric and Magnetic Field Probes". Amer. J. Phys. 35 (11): 1047. Bibcode:1967AmJPh..35.1047W. doi:10.1119/1.1973723.
R.Weiss and S. Ezekiel (1968). "Laser-Induced Fluorescence in a Molecular Beam of Iodine". Phys. Rev. Lett. 20 (3): 91. Bibcode:1968PhRvL..20...91E. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.20.91.
R. Weiss & D. Muehlner (1970). "A Measurement of the Isotropic Background Radiation in the Far Infrared". Phys. Rev. Lett. 24 (13): 742. Bibcode:1970PhRvL..24..742M. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.24.742.
R. Weiss (1972). "Electromagnetically Coupled Broadband Gravitational Antenna" (PDF). Quarterly Progress Report, Research Laboratory of Electronics, MIT. 105: 54.
R. Weiss & D. Muehlner (1973). "Balloon Measurements of the Far Infrared Background Radiation". Phys. Rev. D. 7 (2): 326. Bibcode:1973PhRvD...7..326M. doi:10.1103/PhysRevD.7.326.
R. Weiss & D. Muehlner (1973). "Further Measurements of the Submillimeter Background at Balloon Altitude". Phys. Rev. Lett. 30 (16): 757. Bibcode:1973PhRvL..30..757M. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.30.757.
R. Weiss & D.K. Owens (1974). "Measurements of the Phase Fluctuations on a He-Ne Zeeman Laser". Rev. Sci. Inst. 45 (9): 1060. doi:10.1063/1.1686809.
R. Weiss, D.K. Owens & D. Muehlner (1979). "A Large Beam Sky Survey at Millimeter and Submillimeter Wavelengths Made from Balloon Altitudes". Astrophysical Journal. 231: 702. Bibcode:1979ApJ...231..702O. doi:10.1086/157235.
R. Weiss, P.M. Downey, F.J. Bachner, J.P. Donnelly, W.T. Lindley, R.W. Mountain and D.J. Silversmith (1980). "Monolithic Silicon Bolometers". Journal of Infrared and Millimeter Waves. 1.CS1 maint: Multiple names: authors list (link)
R. Weiss (1980). "Measurements of the Cosmic Background Radiation". Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics. 18: 489. Bibcode:1980ARA&A..18..489W. doi:10.1146/annurev.aa.18.090180.002421.
R. Weiss (1980). "The COBE Project". Physica Scripta. 21 (5): 670. Bibcode:1980PhyS...21..670W. doi:10.1088/0031-8949/21/5/016.
R. Weiss, S.S. Meyer & A.D. Jeffries (1983). "A Search for the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich Effect at Millimeter Wavelengths". Astrophys. J. Lett. 271: L1. Bibcode:1983ApJ...271L...1M. doi:10.1086/184080.
R. Weiss, M. Halpern, R. Benford, S. Meyer and D. Muehlner (1988). "Measurements of the Anisotropy of the Cosmic Background Radiation and Diffuse Galactic Emission at Millimeter and Submillimeter Wavelengths". Astrophys. J. 332: 596. Bibcode:1988ApJ...332..596H. doi:10.1086/166679.CS1 maint: Multiple names: authors list (link)
R. Weiss, J.C. Mather, E.S. Cheng, R.E. Eplee Jr., R.B. Isaacman, S.S. Meyer, R.A. Shafer, E.L. Wright, C.L. Bennett, N.W. Boggess, E. Dwek, S. Gulkis, M.G. Hauser, M. Janssen, T. Kelsall, P.M. Lubin, S.H. Moseley Jr., T.L. Murdock, R.F. Silverberg, G.F. Smoot and D.T. Wilkinson (1990). "A Preliminary Measurement of the Cosmic Microwave Background Spectrum by the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) Satellite". Astrophys. J. 354: L37. Bibcode:1990ApJ...354L..37M. doi:10.1086/185717.CS1 maint: Multiple names: authors list (link)
R. Weiss, G. Smoot, C. Bennett, R. Weber, J. Maruschak, R. Ratliff, M. Janssen, J. Chitwood, L. Hilliard, M. Lecha, R. Mills, R. Patschke, C. Richards, C. Backus, J. Mather, M. Hauser, D. Wilkenson, S. Gulkis, N. Boggess, E. Cheng, T. Kelsall, P. Lubin, S. Meyer, H. Moseley, T. Murdock, R. Shafer, R. Silverberg and E. Wright (1990). "COBE Differential Microwave Radiometers: Instrument Design and Implementation". Astrophys. J. 360: 685. Bibcode:1990ApJ...360..685S. doi:10.1086/169154.CS1 maint: Multiple names: authors list (link)
R. Weiss (1990). "Interferometric Gravitational Wave Detectors". In N. Ashby; D. Bartlett; W. Wyss. Proceedings of the Twelfth International Conference on General Relativity and Gravitation. Cambridge University Press. p. 331.
R. Weiss, D. Shoemaker, P. Fritschel, J. Glaime and N. Christensen (1991). "Prototype Michelson Interferometer with Fabry-Perot Cavities". Applied Optics. 30 (22): 3133–8. Bibcode:1991ApOpt..30.3133S. PMID 20706365. doi:10.1364/AO.30.003133.CS1 maint: Multiple names: authors list (link)
