Dr. Rainer Weiss, a 2017 Nobel laureate in physics, will speak about “Probing the Universe with Gravitational Waves” on Nov. 26 at 6 p.m. in Room 100 of the Material Sciences Building at the University of Alabama in Huntsville.

Dr. Weiss will discuss how the observations of gravitational waves from the mergers of compact binary sources opens a new way to learn about the universe. Sponsored by the UAH Department of Physics & Astronomy, his lecture will describe some of the difficult history of gravitational waves, which were first proposed about 100 years ago. The talk will end with a vision for the future of gravitational wave astronomy.

Best known for inventing the laser interferometric technique used in 2016 by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) to detect gravitational waves for the first time, Dr. Weiss shares the Nobel Prize with Dr. Kip Thorne and Dr. Barry C. Barish “for decisive contributions to the LIGO detector and the observation of gravitational waves.”

He is a professor of physics emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and an adjunct professor at Louisiana State University (LSU). He was chair of the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) Science Working Group.