Rainer Weiss

Rainer (Rai) Weiss is professor of physics emeritus at MIT.

Early life and education

Weiss was born in Berlin, Germany. His family moved to U.S. in the late 1930s; his youth was spent in New York City. He studied at MIT, receiving his B.S. in 1955 and Ph.D. in 1962 from Jerrold Zacharias. He taught at Tufts University in 1960–62, was a postdoctoral scholar at Princeton University from 1962–64, and then joined the faculty at MIT in 1964.

Achievements

He has brought two fields of fundamental physics research from birth to maturity: characterization of the cosmic background radiation, and interferometric gravitational wave observation.

Weiss made pioneering measurements of the spectrum of the cosmic microwave background radiation, and then was co-founder and an intellectual leader of the NASA COBE (microwave background) statellite. Weiss also invented the interferometric gravitational wave detector, and co-founded the NSF LIGO (gravitational-wave detection) Project. Both of these efforts couple remarkable challenges in instrument science with physics of the deepest importance for our understanding of the Universe.

Weiss contributed to LIGO through:
* his inception of the measurement technique
* recognition and delineation of the experimental challenges
* building of early prototype instruments
* leadership of the effort to propose full-scale observatories
* engineering of the world's largest ultra-high vacuum system to house the instruments
* commissioning of the initial detectors
* forming and first leadership of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration
* and mentorship of many of the physicists leading the field.

Selected publications

* cite journal
title=Magnetic Moments and Hyperfine Structure Anomalies of Cs₁₃₃, Cs₁₃₅ and Cs₁₃₇
author=R. Weiss, H.H. Stroke, V. Jaccarino and D.S. Edmonds
journal=Phys. Rev.
volume=105
pages=590
year=1957
doi=10.1103/PhysRev.105.590

* cite journal
title=Molecular Beam Electron Bombardment Detector
author=R. Weiss
journal=Rev. Sci. Instr.
volume=32
pages=397
year=1961
doi=10.1063/1.1717386

* cite journal
title=A Search for a Frequency Shift of 14.4 keV Photons on Traversing Radiation Fields
author=R. Weiss and L. Grodzins
journal=Physics Letters
volume=1
pages=342
year=1962
doi=10.1016/0031-9163(62)90420-1

* cite journal
last=Weiss
first=Rainer
title=Stark Effect and Hyperfine Structure of Hydrogen Fluoride
journal=Phys. Rev.
volume=131
pages=659
year=1963
doi=10.1103/PhysRev.131.659

* cite journal
title=A Gravimeter to Monitor the _OS_O Dilational Model of the Earth
author=R. Weiss and B. Block
journal=J. Geophy. Res.
volume=70
pages=5615
yar=1966
doi=10.1029/JZ070i022p05615
year=1965

* cite journal
title=Experimental Test of the Freundlich Red-Shift Hypothesis
author=R. Weiss and G. Blum
journal=Phys. Rev.
volume=155
pages=1412
year=1967
doi=10.1103/PhysRev.155.1412

* cite journal
title=Electric and Magnetic Field Probes
author=R. Weiss
journal=Amer. J. Phys.
volume=35
pages=1047
year=1967
doi=10.1119/1.1973723

* cite journal
title=Laser-Induced Fluorescence in a Molecular Beam of Iodine
author= R.Weiss and S. Ezekiel
journal=Phys. Rev. Let.
volume=20
pages=91
year=1968
doi=10.1103/PhysRevLett.20.91

* cite journal
title=A Measurement of the Isotropic Background Radiation in the Far Infrared
journal=Phys. Rev. Let.
volume=24
pages=742
year=1970
author=R. Weiss and D. Muehlner
doi=10.1103/PhysRevLett.24.742

* cite journal
title=Electromagetically Coupled Broadband Gravitational Antenna
journal=Quarterly Progress Report, Research Laboratory of Electronics, MIT
volume=105
pages=54
year=1972
author=R. Weiss

* cite journal
title=Balloon Measurements of the Far Infrared Background Radiation
author= R. Weiss and D. Muehlner
journal=Phys. Rev. D
volume=7
pages=326
year=1973
doi=10.1103/PhysRevD.7.326

* cite journal
title=Further Measurements of the Submillimeter Background at Balloon Altitude
author= R. Weiss and D. Muehlner
journal=Phys. Rev. Let.
volume=30
pages=757
year=1973
doi=10.1103/PhysRevLett.30.757

* cite journal
title=Measurements of the Phase Fluctuations on a He-Ne Zeeman Laser
author=R. Weiss and D.K. Owens
journal=Rev. Sci. Inst.
volume=45
pages=1060
year=1974
doi=10.1063/1.1686809

* cite journal
title=A Large Beam Sky Survey at Millimeter and Submillimeter Wavelengths Made from Balloon Altitudes
author= R. Weiss, D.K. Owens and D. Muehlner
journal=Astrophysical Journal
volume=231
pages=702
year=1979
doi=10.1086/157235

* cite journal
title=Monolithic Silicon Bolometers
author= R. Weiss, P.M. Downey, F.J. Bachner, J.P. Donnelly, W.T. Lindley, R.W. Mountain and D.J. Silversmith
journal=Journal of Infrared and Millimeter Waves
volume=1
year=1980

* cite journal
title=Measurements of the Cosmic Background Radiation
journal=Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics
volume=18
pages=489
author=R. Weiss
year=1980
doi=10.1146/annurev.aa.18.090180.002421

* cite journal
title=The COBE Project
author=R. Weiss
journal=Physica Scripta
volume=21
pages=670
year=1980
doi=10.1088/0031-8949/21/5/016

* cite journal
title=A Search for the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich Effect at Millimeter Wavelengths
author=R. Weiss, S.S. Meyer and A.D. Jeffries
journal=Ap. J. Let.
volume=271
pages=L1
year=1983
doi=10.1086/184080

* cite journal
title=Measurements of the Anistropy of the Cosmic Background Radiation and Diffuse Galactic Emission at Millimeter and Submillimeter Wavelengths
author= R. Weiss, M. Halpern, R. Benford, S. Meyer and D. Muehlner
journal=Ap. J.
volume=332
pages=596
year=1988
doi=10.1086/166679

* cite journal
title=A Preliminary Measurement of the Cosmic Microwave Background Spectrum by the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) Satellite
author= R. Weiss, J.C. Mather, E.S. Cheng, R.E. Eplee Jr., R.B. Isaacman, S.S. Meyer, R.A. Shafer, E.L. Wright, C.L. Bennett, N.W. Boggess, E. Dwek, S. Gulkis, M.G. Hauser, M. Janssen, T. Kelsall, P.M. Lubin, S.H. Moseley Jr., T.L. Murdock, R.F. Silverberg, G.F. Smoot and D.T. Wilkinson
journal=Ap. J.
volume=354
pages=L37
year=1990
doi=10.1086/185717

* cite journal
title=COBE Differential Microwave Radiometers: Instrument Design and Implementation
author=R. Weiss, G. Smoot, C. Bennett, R. Weber, J. Maruschak, R. Ratliff, M. Janssen, J. Chitwood, L. Hilliard, M. Lecha, R. Mills, R. Patschke, C. Richards, C. Backus, J. Mather, M. Hauser, D. Wilkenson, S. Gulkis, N. Boggess, E. Cheng, T. Kelsall, P. Lubin, S. Meyer, H. Moseley, T. Murdock, R. Shafer, R. Silverberg and E. Wright
journal=Ap. J.
volume=360
pages=685
year=1990
doi=10.1086/169154

* cite book
author=R. Weiss
chapter=Interferometric Gravitational Wave Detectors
title=Proceedings of the Twelfth International Conference on General Relativity and Gravitation
editor=ed. N. Ashby, D. Bartlett and W. Wyss
publisher=Cambidge University Press
pages=331
year=1990

* cite journal
title=Prototype Michelson Interferometer with Fabry-Perot Cavities
author= R. Weiss, D. Shoemaker, P. Fritschel, J. Glaime and N. Christensen
journal=Applied Optics
volume=30
pages=3133
year=1991

References

*Mather, John and John Boslough, The Very First Light: The True Inside Story of the Scientific Journey Back to the Dawn of the Universe, ISBN 978-0465015764
*Bartusiak, M., Einstein's Unfinished Symphony: Listening to the Sounds of Space-Time, ISBN 978-0425186206

External links

* [http://web.mit.edu/physics/facultyandstaff/faculty/rainer_weiss.html Rainer Weiss' website at MIT]
* [http://space.mit.edu/LIGO LIGO Group at the MIT Kalvi Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research]