Reunion with my Friend Nobel Laureate Rai Weiss

This is Ray Weiss. He is my friend and former colleague at MIT. He became interested in the MIT faculty in 1964. And I am interested in the faculty since 1966. We have overlapped at MIT for over 40 years. Ray is truly amazing. More than 45 years ago He discovered a concept that might possibly make it possible to detect gravitational waves here on Earth. He dedicated his entire life to it thereafter. And from this, an enormous project grew. which is known as LIGO. In 2015 they discovered the first gravitational wave. Ever since then, they have discovered much about it. For this ray, together with Kip Thorne from Caltech, He discovered the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2017. That was, of course, an absolute guarantee. We all knew he would get it. Ray has discovered approximately hundreds of prizes. I won't even mention them. I suggest you google him. Ray Weiss Last night, October 26, 2018 My wife and I went to his talk. A very prestigious keynote speaker at UConn, University of Connecticut. The public was back. It was wonderful to see him again. Of course, my wife took some photos of Ray and me. I've recorded a few parts. I had recorded the whole thing. But my wife said we were sitting in the front. that it might have offended him, I just took a few photos through it. A total of eight minutes. Three short parts, short segments, a total of eight minutes. This is how you can taste the flavor of this incredible discovery. but it's not a very coherent conversation, since you only see ten parts, the one I randomly picked. Okay, I hope you like it I had a nice day, of course. Today is Saturday, October 27. Ray is brilliant. Not only does he feel from this interferometer concept, but he has spent it in an impressive manner It took him more than fourteen years. Look him up, Google him. It has now become active And it is an extremely important instrument. There is a research detector in Germany. in Haarhoven, which lasted approximately 600 years And then there are plan discoverers in the Kamioka mine, That is in Japan, where the neutrino discoverer is. And they built a large garden. and they build a discoverer, That's three kilometers inside the city. That's an interesting thing they're doing. They try to make that graphic gradient sound as well as possible on a limited budget. And then there's one more, and that will be ready, We hope, around 2020. And this is a rover built in India, with a detector also built by LIGO. I'm not going to go into the history of that, But they hope to be back on Earth by 2025. And I will show you at the end of the language why it is so important to have many explorers But I expect it here. To connect yourself with what the astronomers did, and that is ultimately what we want to do, And that became very important. as you will see in a few minutes when you start with many different channels to look at the universe. You see not only graphical gradients, but also optical, infrared, Neutrino's, everything. All those things become much more usable as far as we can tell with a graphical signal, where the signal from Earth comes from. That is very important. And we can't do that with two explorers, as you will see in a minute. There is no way to detect a gravitational wave. You only need to account for time differences. And you will see this now, When we talk about discoveries. So let me give you a brief log of LIGO's journey. This won't take long. This is the Louisiana site, the one you see above here. And this is the Hanford, Washington site. And here is the V2 itself. That is a very high vacuum. And the laser images work there. This is a laser table, just like the one in her lab. And that's a standard kind of thing. And here is the control room in Louisiana. And people learn how the instruments work. And that is quite an art. You must learn how to control a whole bunch of servos and does a whole lot of things. That's as much as I'm letting you see. I want to show you this photo, because it is important for historical reasons. That's what it is. And it's a bit like, if you have ambitions, Can you learn something? One pendulum. There is another pendulum hanging there in front. And another pendulum, hanging in front of it. And here is this very valuable mirror. That shouldn't move much. And so, I don't know if you... I mean, there is one invention that is ultimately. That is not very ultimate. That's a kind of happy thing. But what is the basis of it? If you... Let's say, here's what you can do. When I take off my pants and I... Thank you, but... Not my pants, but my belt. Now, what happens is that... You will see the following. If you... You can do this at home. It is not difficult. Hang a... Hang a piece of... Crash... String And you will see the following. If you... This is Earth, here. And if you move very slowly, They move together. That's just how it is. But if this moves quickly, and it doesn't move at all. That's just f equal, ma. That's just the basics... Physically... And that... That is part of it, clearly. The other reason why I couldn't talk about it, We weren't sure. I mean, the discovery was in September 2015. We had this thing, What kind of amazing is it. It's enormous. And what you see here in these photos, It's time. And this is summer. Look here. It is 10 to 21, That is the scale. Here it is from 10 to 21. And this is the Earth. A little outside the Earth. This is the living room. This is on the way to Louisiana. A signal begins to develop outside of it. And there it becomes quite large. And then this is Earth again. And then it becomes nothing. This is the same thing you see in Hanford. but not exactly at the same time. Let me show you how, It is a signal, This is a 7-millisecond signal. 0.007 seconds before that. And that was the time it took for this signal From Louisiana to the Earth to find oneself in Washington State. That was the first indication we had, that these waves, as they work through the gravitational wagon, traveling close to the speed of life. That was the first indication we had. And then you do little tricks like this. And your superposition, Wear down the data. And you can see, This is a fragment, They don't look that much alike. But there's noise in them, There is no fatigue. But there is something developing in both of them, It looks almost exactly the same. but it is not identical. It cannot be identical. because there is noise in the system. And that thing has then been interpreted. And here is another way in order to interpret it What a lovely way it is, Do we really need this? When are we going to the next discovery? What this is The same data, but interpreted in such a way so you hear it. And what are the frequency components? In that signal? So here is time again. And here are the signals the one we had planned earlier as time series. But this is now something in frequency. Let's plan it here. This is the top of the piano. about 20 hertz Here is the middle one of 256. And here's one thing That's a kind of sonogram. of this thing, interpreted as a sound. And where it is most brilliant, It's where it's strongest. And these are the same photos as well as in Hanford as in Washington State in Louisville. Shortly afterwards, There was an indication, This is on September 14, 2015. Here is a data point that was measured October 12, 2015. And here is one that was, This is a date that ultimately believed This is September 26, 2015. That was observed by LIGO. And here is the data that was measured with the same photos as before It wasn't very impressive, But they had a real signal. This is a 4-signal, This is a 5-signal. And here is the important part part of the information that it came out. Here is a photo of the sky. And if you take LIGO alone, and you have an uncertainty in the air a big banana like that That's about 1,000 square degrees That is a truth. And you see that it keeps getting higher and higher And then you play for it. Okay? This is a complete another type. These are two neutron stars. That is the real truth. And that is now much lighter. These are 1.4 solar masses the one we made in the sixth. And here was real evidence for it, for the first month The other thing that people had given Are heavy elements that? made, the very heavy elements. They are not made in stars, You are not made in the great fear, The big bang is the initial moment from the creation of the universe. But you can have hydrogen and helium Extract the rope, But you don't get much else out of it. And you see this color coating. Now, here is the periodic table for those who recognize it And this color coating tells you the source of where these things are made. And most of us thought that We listen that It wasn't made into a big deal. likely in explosive stars in a supernova, in various spectral classes of stars but green and yellow are the most of the attention. But all things Green or yellow are here. They couldn't go high enough, Enough. That was beautiful presentation But you've already heard it. Professor Weiss has ultimately agreed for the sake of asking questions, if you want someone Help me with that, want my hearing is not as good as yours. So if you can discuss the question, I might not be able to hear it either. Let's pass the microphone. Yes, with the user's microphone. That's the way you do it.