“a new way to measure gravitational waves.”
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Rainer Weiss
Rainer Weiss was a German-American physicist, known for his contributions in gravitational physics and astrophysics. He was a professor of physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an adjunct professor at Louisiana State University. He is best known for inventing the laser interferometric technique which is the basic operation of LIGO. He was Chair of the COBE Science Working Group.
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science · American physicist (1932–2025) · physicist · university teacher · astrophysicist · also Rainer Weiss, Rainer "Rai" Weiss, Weiss
Born 29 September 1932 · Died 25 August 2025 · Q2128461
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2026· 1 entry
2025· 1 entry
Died 2025-08-25.
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2020· 3 entries
Published “Global burden of 369 diseases and injuries in 204 countries and territories, 1990–2019: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2019” in The Lancet — cited 16,051 times.
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Was elected a Legacy Fellow of the American Astronomical Society
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Published “Global burden of 87 risk factors in 204 countries and territories, 1990–2019: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2019” in The Lancet — cited 8,053 times.
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2018· 5 entries
Awarded honorary doctorate of the University of Almeria (2018).
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Awarded honorary doctor of the Eötvös Loránd University (2018).
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Published “Global, regional, and national incidence, prevalence, and years lived with disability for 354 diseases and injuries for 195 countries and territories, 1990–2017: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2017” in The Lancet — cited 11,011 times.
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Was awarded the American Astronomical Society's Joseph Weber Award for Astronomical Instrumentation "for his invention of the interferometric gravitational-wave detector, which led to the first detection of long-predi
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Published “Minimal information for studies of extracellular vesicles 2018 (MISEV2018): a position statement of the International Society for Extracellular Vesicles and update of the MISEV2014 guidelines” in Journal of Extracellular Vesicles — cited 9,690 times.
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2017· 5 entries
Awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics — for decisive contributions to the LIGO detector and the observation of gravitational waves.
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Awarded Nobel Prize in Physics (2017).
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Awarded Cocconi Prize (2017).
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Published “GW170817: Observation of Gravitational Waves from a Binary Neutron Star Inspiral” in Physical Review Letters — cited 8,280 times.
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Weiss was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics, along with Kip Thorne and Barry Barish, "for decisive contributions to the LIGO detector and the observation of gravitational waves"
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2016· 7 entries
Awarded Harvey Prize (2016).
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Awarded Gruber Prize in Cosmology (2016).
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Won Kavli Prize in Astrophysics (2016).
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Awarded Clarivate Citation Laureates (2016).
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Awarded The Shaw Prize in Astronomy (2016).
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And 2017, for the achievement of gravitational waves detection, he received:
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Published “Observation of Gravitational Waves from a Binary Black Hole Merger” in Physical Review Letters — cited 11,729 times.
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2007· 2 entries
Awarded Einstein Prize (2007).
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With Ronald Drever, he was awarded the APS Einstein Prize for his work
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2005· 1 entry
Published “Quantum Dots for Live Cells, in Vivo Imaging, and Diagnostics” in Science — cited 7,043 times.
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2004· 1 entry
Published “Neutrophil Extracellular Traps Kill Bacteria” in Science — cited 8,929 times.
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1998· 1 entry
Published “Semiconductor Nanocrystals as Fluorescent Biological Labels” in Science — cited 7,826 times.
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1984· 1 entry
With joint leadership by Ronald Drever, Weiss, and Thorne
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1973· 2 entries
Weiss was forced to pivot with his work as the US military cut funding for any science that was not determined to be "directly relevant to its core mission
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Made pioneering measurements of the spectrum of the cosmic microwave background radiation, taken from a weather balloon, showing that the microwave background exhibited the thermal spectrum characteristic of the remna
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1972· 1 entry
But it took three years before Thorne was convinced it could work
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1967· 1 entry
To illustrate the principle of gravitational wave detection in a simpler way, Weiss devised a thought experiment involving time of flight measurements of light between free masses in space, which in principle required "i
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1964· 1 entry
Starting a new research group in the Research Laboratory of Electronics dedicated to research in cosmology and gravitation
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1932· 2 entries
Born 1932-09-29.
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The son of Gertrude Loesner and Frederick A
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