From the Liveblog of
Tuesday, October 3, 2017
Nobel physics prize salutes discovery in gravitational waves
Add ToI as a Preferred Source on GoogleThe Nobel Physics Prize 2017 is awarded to three scientists for their discoveries in gravitational waves.
Sweden’s Royal Academy of Sciences announces that the winners are Barry Barish and Kip Thorne of the California Institute of Technology, as well as Rainer Weiss of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Weiss was born to a German-Jewish father. His family fled Germany due to the Nazis’ rise to power.
The three were key to the first observation of gravitational waves in September 2015.
The waves were predicted by Albert Einstein a century ago as part of his theory of general relativity. General relativity says that gravity is caused by heavy objects bending space-time, which itself is the four-dimensional way that astronomers see the universe.
— AP
The Times of Israel Community.