Renowned experimental physicist, Nobel laureate and Massachusetts Institute of Technology Professor Emeritus Rainer Weiss, passed away on Aug. 25 at the age of 92.
Weiss was integral in confirming the existence of tiny ripples in spacetime called "gravitational waves," first predicted by Albert Einstein in his 1915 theory of gravity, general relativity. Weiss achieved this when he conceived the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) with the aid of other physics luminaries such as Kip Thorne and Scottish physicist Ronald Drever. Weiss then went on to lead the team that built LIGO, as well as leading the scientists who, on Sept. 14, 2015, made the first detection of gravitational waves. The signal, designated GW150914, was the result of two black holes colliding and merging 1.4 billion light-years away.
