From Harvey to Nobel Prize, Technion Congratulates

Technion congratulates the 2017 Nobel Laureates in physics: Prof. Emeritus Rainer Weiss, Professor Emeritus Kip Stephen Thorne, and Prof. Barry Barish, who headed the discovery of gravitational waves in 2015 as part of the LIGO experiment. The prize will be awarded to them “for decisive contributions to the LIGO detector and the observation of gravitational waves.”

Four months ago, Technion’s Harvey Prize was awarded to three LIGO researchers: Prof. Emeritus Rainer Weiss, Professor Emeritus Kip Stephen Thorne, and Professor Emeritus Ronald Drever, who died shortly before the award ceremony. The Harvey Prize in Science and Technology was awarded “for the first direct detection of gravitational waves, confirming a central prediction of Einstein’s theory of general relativity and opening a new window to the universe.”

According to Prof. Ehud Behar of Technion’s Faculty of Physics, “The LIGO facility and the discovery of gravity waves provide us with unprecedented information on black holes, information that is not available to us in any other way.” The Nobel Prize winners in physics revealed the physical processes occurring in the last moments before the fusion of black holes as well as processes that occur in neutron stars.”

Prof. Emeritus Rainer Weiss of MIT receives the award from the President of Technion
Left to right: Prof. Emeritus Rainer Weiss, Ian Drever, Technion President Prof. Peretz Lavie, and Professor Emeritus Kip Stephen Thorne.