Rainer weiss biography

More About Rainer Weiss. I was born in Berlin, Germany on September 29,

I was born in Berlin, Germany on September 29, My father was a neurologist who had rebelled against his family of well-off intellectual German jews with connections to the Rathenau family. He had become an idealistic communist. My mother was a Protestant who had rebelled against her family by becoming an actress. In the family emigrated to Prague, Czechoslovakia to escape the Nazis. In my sister Sybille was born.

Rainer weiss biography

His father was a physician and his mother was an actress. His family was forced out of Germany by the Nazis since his father was Jewish and a Communist. Rai, his mother and father fled to Prague, Czechoslovakia. In a sister was born in Prague. In , after Chamberlain appeased Hitler by effectively giving him Czechoslovakia, the family was able to obtain visas to enter the United States through the Stix Family in St. Louis, who were giving bond to professional Jewish emigrants. When Rai was 21 years-old, he visited Mrs. Stix and thanked her for what she had done for his family. The family immigrated to New York City. Through the services of an immigrant relief organization Rai received a scholarship to attend the prestigious Columbia Grammar School. At the end of , when Rai was 13 years old, he became fascinated with electronics and music. Rai bought some of the equipment and began making ham radio transmitters and an audio system for his school. Then, after a movie theater in Brooklyn had a fire behind the screen, he was able to acquire broken but repairable loud speakers and began making high-fidelity equipment.

Also at that time he met his wife Rebecca, a graduate of Radcliffe College, who was working as a botanist for Harvard.

Writing this at 73 and having shed the august responsibilities of a full fledged faculty, it is natural to be retrospective rather than to look at prospects. Currently working on the LIGO project, a joint Caltech and MIT effort, to observe gravitational waves and use them to study gravitation and astrophysics. My role now is to be the equivalent of a grad student. Very much enjoy this. Over the years have worked on cosmological studies with Robert Dicke and David Wilkinson at Princeton. If you are really interested, you can read the standard stuff. Previously Dr.

He is best known for inventing the laser interferometric technique which is the basic operation of LIGO. 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. His mother, an actress, was Christian. The family fled first to Prague , but Germany's occupation of Czechoslovakia after the Munich Agreement caused them to flee again; the philanthropic Stix family of St. Louis helped them obtain visas to enter the United States. He studied at MIT , dropped out during his junior year, [14] but eventually returned to receive his S. He taught at Tufts University from to , was a postdoctoral scholar at Princeton University from to , and then joined the faculty at MIT in

Rainer weiss biography

Thank you for registering with Physics World If you'd like to change your details at any time, please visit My account. Now aged 90 he talks to Sidney Perkowitz about his life and work, from the unexpected sources for scientific inspiration to the challenges of large-scale experiments. Down-to-earth, unassuming, and keen to discuss his research, physicist Rainer Weiss is remarkably easy to talk to. Despite portending their existence, Einstein himself doubted that these waves would ever be observable because they are extremely weak. It took decades of effort from Weiss, his Nobel colleagues and many others, and the discovery represented a pinnacle in physics that also ushered in a new era in astronomy. Since the advent of observational astronomy, we had been scanning the universe mostly by observing first visible light, then a broad spectrum of electromagnetic waves.

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Vogt also instituted a structure of coupling engineers and scientists in the design of the vacuum system, beamtubes and facilities to assure that the difficult and unique instrument requirements were met by the facilities. This allowed the construction of identical detectors with arms 4 km long at Hanford, Washington and Livingston, Louisiana , for coincidence studies to confirm any sightings. Cosmology and gravitation I left to take a faculty position at MIT in the fall of The gravitational waves change the travel time of light between the masses. The students did this as a homework problem with mathematics not more difficult than that used in Special Relativity with a time varying metric. Left: copyright. My son Benjamin was born during this course. He took about two months off from MIT since he did not think they took attendance and thought he could get by just by taking the exams. Hall , Robert S. The major part of the work would be technical development rather than gravitational wave science.

Writing this at 73 and having shed the august responsibilities of a full fledged faculty, it is natural to be retrospective rather than to look at prospects.

Previously Dr. Despite portending their existence, Einstein himself doubted that these waves would ever be observable because they are extremely weak. In the fifth grade, he received a scholarship, via a local refugee relief organization to join Columbia Grammar School — a private school in mid-Manhattan, which at one time was associated with preparing students for Columbia University. We received a remarkable endorsement stating that gravitational wave detection was a high risk but also high payoff field. Rai attended MIT because of his strong interest in electrical engineering. The group at MIT has trained 49 PhD and MS physicists and over 55 undergraduates in the technology and science associated with interferometric gravitational wave detection, some of whom are now part of the LIGO project. But his efforts failed and he decided to go to college to learn enough to enable him to solve the problem. Methods A, , Now aged 90 he talks to Sidney Perkowitz about his life and work, from the unexpected sources for scientific inspiration to the challenges of large-scale experiments. Bruce Allen. It received experimental verification when small test interferometers built in his lab and by a German group bore out his calculations. LIGO Magazine 1. When the students asked Weiss about such measurements, he came up with a pedagogical gedanken experiment to show in principle how they could be made.