Gravitational Waves, Black Holes and Einstein's Legacy

Join us for a special lecture by Rainer Weiss, inventor of LIGO, the instrument that made the first direct detection of gravitational waves.

On February 11, 2016, leaders of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO) announced the historic direct detection of gravitational waves, confirming a key prediction of Einstein’s general theory of relativity.  The discovery caught the world’s imagination and has been the subject of hundreds of news reports.  Rai Weiss conceived the LIGO system and became co-founder of the project.  We are fortunate that he is able to make room in his schedule to give a popular-level  talk on this great  discovery. 

Rainer Weiss is Professor of Physics, Emeritus, at M.I.T.  He wrote the first paper on the LIGO concept in 1972 as a result of teaching a course in general relativity.  Apart from co-founding LIGO, he also co-founded the COBE (Cosmic Background Explorer) project.  Launched in 1989, the COBE satellite first detected the ripples in the cosmic microwave background radiation, thereby confirming current theories of galaxy formation.

Cookies and Coffee at 2:00 p.m.