Nobel Prize Winner Rainer Weiss: Feeling Spacetime Shudder: Black Holes, Gravitational Waves and Nobel Prizes! (#105)

MIT Physics Professor Emeritus Rainer Weiss won a 1/2 share of The
Nobel Prize in Physics 2017 For his contributions to the LIGO
detector and the observation of gravitational waves. He was born in
Berlin, where his father was a doctor and psychoanalyst and his
mother an actress. His father was of Jewish descent, and the family
fled Nazism to the United States. After schooling in New York,
Weiss studied at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where
he received his doctor’s degree in 1962. After a couple of years at
Tufts University and Princeton University, he returned to MIT,
which he has been associated with ever since. Rainer Weiss is
married and has a daughter and a son. Professor Weiss’ Nobel
winning work come out of one consequence of Albert Einstein’s
general theory of relativity, the existence of gravitational waves.
These are like ripples in a four-dimensional spacetime that occur
when objects with mass accelerate. The effects are very small.
Beginning in the 1970s the LIGO detector was developed. In this
detector laser technology is used to measure small changes in
length caused by gravitational waves. Rainer Weiss has made crucial
contributions to the development of the detector. In 2015
gravitational waves were detected for the first time. 00:00:00
Introduction 00:08:00 Concerns about Getting The Nobel Prize
00:12:55 Imposter Syndrome? You too!? 00:18:46 Theorists V
Experimentalists pros and cons 00:23:22 Thoughts on STEM Pedagogy
00:27:21 Essential Skills: using your hands and the role of
electronics surplus and music. 00:33:39 Dropping Out And Finding
MIT and Atomic Clocks 00:35:52 Philosophy of Experimental Science
00:39:44 Thinkng about Einstein-What’s his most cited paper and
why? 00:40:54 How do you know when to quit an experiment? 00:42:26
On LIGO and the art and science of detecting weak signals. 00:48:02
Did you have doubts about detecting gravitational waves? Thoughts
on Eisntein’s original work on general relativity. 01:00:00 The
nature of scientific collaborations (and rivalries). 01:21:00 The
circular logic of singularity theory. 01:22:38 What if there was no
big bang? 01:26:56 Why did your MIT Dean draw a huge zero? 01:28:10
Staying at MIT 01:30:34 What’s it like to work on “fringe”
projects? 01:33:39 Can experiments get too big? 01:40:00 What would
you do with your own billion year time capsule? 01:41:00 What
advice would you give your younger self? Watch my most popular
videos: Sheldon Glashow:
https://youtu.be/a0_iaWgxQtA?sub_confirmation=1 Sir Roger Penrose,
Nobel Prize winner:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMuqyAvX7Wo?sub_confirmation=1
Frank Wilczek https://youtu.be/3z8RqKMQHe0?sub_confirmation=1 Eric
Weinstein: https://youtu.be/YjsPb3kBGnk?sub_confirmation=1 Sir
Roger Penrose https://youtu.be/H8G5onAqlVo?sub_confirmation=1 Juan
Maldacena’s First Podcast Interview:
https://youtu.be/uIzTliTHn7s?sub_confirmation=1 Jim Simons:
https://youtu.be/6fr8XOtbPqM?sub_confirmation=1 Sara Seager Venus
LIfe: https://youtu.be/QPsEDoOTU6k?sub_confirmation=1 Noam Chomsky:
https://youtu.be/Iaz6JIxDh6Y?sub_confirmation=1 Sabine
Hossenfelder: https://youtu.be/V6dMM2-X6nk?sub_confirmation=1 Sarah
Scoles: https://youtu.be/apVKobWigMw Stephen Wolfram:
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