Nobel Prize in physics awarded to three scientists for the detection of gravitational waves

Today, three researchers have been awarded the Nobel Prize in physics for their work in detecting gravitational waves — ripples in space and time that travel throughout our Universe. The recipients are Rainer Weiss, a physics professor at MIT, and Kip Thorne and Barry Barish, who are both physics professors at Caltech.

The trio are key members of LIGO, or the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory — a scientific collaboration that made history when it announced last year the first ever detection of gravitational waves. Over a century ago, Albert Einstein predicted the existence of these waves in his theory of general relativity. He argued that every object in the Universe warps the space and time around it, and when an...

Continue reading…