Rainer weiss biography

He is best known for inventing the laser interferometric technique which is the basic operation of LIGO. Weiss has helped rainer weiss biography a number of challenging experimental tests of fundamental physics.

More About Rainer Weiss. 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 Christian who had rebelled against her family by becoming an actress. Berlin in was balkanized with no strong central government.

Rainer weiss biography

Primary areas of research: Atomic clocks, Cosmic background radiation measurements, Gravitational wave detection. Most of my research has been dedicated to establishing an observational and experimental basis for relativistic gravitation. In this I have been influenced by the work of Robert Dicke in the early s. Because the relativistic effects are usually small, the research tends toward the development of techniques to measure small quantities with precision and to understand the limitations in the measurements. As a young physicist I worked with the methods developed by I. Rabi and J. Zacharias to measure the properties of isolated molecules and atoms. This led to the development of atomic clocks and the frequency stabilization of lasers. Later research was carried out to measure the spectrum and angular distribution of the cosmic background radiation, first from balloon platforms and subsequently using the Cosmic Background Explorer satellite. Detectable gravitational waves will come from accelerating mass in highly relativistic regions with strong gravitational fields. The waves will offer a "look" at the strong field gravitation in the vicinity of black holes and possibly the earliest moments of the Universe. All rights reserved. Research Interests Most of my research has been dedicated to establishing an observational and experimental basis for relativistic gravitation.

Shortly after teaching the Relativity course, rainer weiss biography part because an excellent student and I had become interested in cosmology and the cosmic microwave background CMB radiation had just been discovered, the group began a program to measure the spectrum of the radiation to determine its thermal nature.

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.

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

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 Weiss brought two fields of fundamental physics research from birth to maturity: characterization of the cosmic background radiation, [3] and interferometric gravitational wave observation. In 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.

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We received a remarkable endorsement stating that gravitational wave detection was a high risk but also high payoff field. They were available for the taking. Groups that had been working on Weber type detectors in Germany and Scotland began working on interferometric detectors as well. After further consultation, he invited Drever from Scotland to start such a group. The experiment I did was to search for scalar gravitational waves with a gravimeter to detect excitation of the monopole vibrational mode of the Earth at a Scientific career. BBC News. That problem convinced Rai he would do well to go to college. Eventually, we did get funded and the MIT prototype was completed as well. Louis, who were giving bond to professional Jewish emigrants. From through the MIT group, with help from Stan Whitcomb of Caltech, did a study with industry to establish the feasibility of constructing a long baseline interferometric gravitational wave detector system. Whitesides

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My son Benjamin was born during this course. The waves may also arise from pulsars to complement what electromagnetic waves reveal about them. Retrieved October 3, I described interferometric detection of gravitational waves to him. The CMB measurements, first of the spectrum and later of the angular distribution of the radiation, were the mainstay for graduate students in the group. 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. I got orders to build similar systems for them, and soon I had more orders than I could handle. Based on the success of the prototypes, the credibility the Caltech decision gave the field, and my difficulties to have graduate student PhD theses accepted, I proposed to the NSF to carry out a feasibility study with industry to design and construct a long baseline interferometric detector system with sufficient sensitivity to intersect estimates for the gravitational waves incident on the earth from plausible astronomical sources. Most did not get visas to leave. After this meeting I tried to interest the MIT administration in engaging a project manager to begin to organize the effort but there was not much interest. My father was a neurologist who had rebelled against his family of well off intellectual German jews with connections to the Rathenau family. Both of these efforts couple challenges in instrument science with physics important to the understanding of the Universe. In a hotel filled with expatriate German jews we all gathered around a gothic looking wooden radio and heard Neville Chamberlain give Czechoslovakia to Hitler to avoid a second world war.