October 3, 2017

expert reaction to announcement that the Nobel Prize in Physics 2017 has been awarded to three scientists for their work on gravitational waves

The 2017 Nobel prize in physics has been awarded to three US scientists for the detection of gravitational waves.

Prof Lord Martin Rees, Astronomer Royal & Fellow of Trinity College, University of Cambridge, said:

“The Nobel committee has apportioned credit appropriately among three leaders of the LIGO project – outstanding individuals whose contributions were distinctive and complementary. Weiss deserves prime credit for devising (along with the late Ron Drever) the amazingly precise laser techniques. Moreover he was ‘hands on’ and saw the project through to its success. Thorne, for decades acknowledged as an outstanding theorist, mentor, and intellectual leader, has been an inspiring ‘promoter’ of LIGO for three decades. Barish, with prior experience of managing large projects in particle physics, was brought in to coordinate the development and construction of the facilities.

“But of course LIGO’s success was owed to literally hundreds of dedicated scientists and engineers. The fact that the Nobel committee refuses to make group awards is causing them increasingly frequent problems –and giving a misleading and unfair impression of how a lot of science is actually done.”

*https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/2017/press.html