Nobel prize in physics awarded for discovery of gravitational waves

Tuesday October 3, 2017

£825,ooo prize awarded to Rainer Weiss, Barry Barish and Kip Thorne for their work on experiment which was able to detect ripples in the fabric of spacetime

Three American physicists have won the Nobel prize in physics for the discovery of gravitational waves, ripples in the fabric of spacetime that were first anticipated by Albert Einstein a century ago.

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Rainer Weiss, has been awarded one half of the 9m Swedish kronor (£825,000) prize, announced by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm today. Kip Thorne and Barry Barish will share the other half of the prize.

All three scientists have played a leading role in the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory, or Ligo, experiment, which made the first historic observation of gravitational waves in September 2015.

Ronald Drever, a Scottish physicist, who alongside Weiss and Thorne played a leading role in developing Ligo, died in March from dementia less than 18 months after gravitational waves were first detected. The Nobel prize is not normally awarded posthumously. ■

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