When we initially proposed LIGO, the only sources that we were really contemplating were supernovae. We thought we would see something like one a year, maybe even ten a year. — Rainer Weiss Copy Share Image
Gravitational waves, because they are so imperturbable - they go through everything - they will tell you the most information you can get about… — Rainer Weiss Copy Share Image
The waves travel with the velocity of light and slightly squeeze and stretch space transverse to the direction of their motion. The first waves… — Rainer Weiss Copy Share Image
Experimentally, we now have demonstrated that Einstein's theory is right in strong gravitational fields. That's important to a lot of people. — Rainer Weiss Copy Share Image
You think Earth's gravity is really something when you're climbing the stairs. But, as far as physics goes, it is a pipsqueak, infinitesimal, tiny… — Rainer Weiss Copy Share Image
We've seen black holes, which is already wonderful. We also expect to see the merger of neutron stars, and that was a thing that… — Rainer Weiss Copy Share Image
We know about black holes and neutron stars, but we hope there are other phenomena we can see because of the gravitational waves they… — Rainer Weiss Copy Share Image
We were looking almost one-tenth of the way to the edge of the universe. We're planning to use the facilities we have to make… — Rainer Weiss Copy Share Image
It's very, very exciting that it worked out in the end that we are actually detecting things and actually adding to the knowledge, through… — Rainer Weiss Copy Share Image
For reasons probably related to the popular vision of Albert Einstein and, also, the threat posed by black holes in comic books and science… — Rainer Weiss Copy Share Image
The whole idea of gravity curling up space, that is the epitome of what is going on in a black hole. I would've loved… — Rainer Weiss Copy Share Image
The obvious thing to me was, let's take freely floating masses in space and measure the time it takes light to travel between them.… — Rainer Weiss Copy Share Image
All at once, funding was gone due to the Mansfield Amendment, which was a reaction to the Vietnam War. In the minds of the… — Rainer Weiss Copy Share Image
