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Published January 2019 | public
Journal Article

LIGO and Gravitational Waves, III: Nobel Lecture, December 8, 2017

Thorne, Kip S.

Abstract

The first observation of gravitational waves, by LIGO on September 14, 2015, was the culmination of a near half century effort by ∼1200 scientists and engineers of the LIGO/Virgo Collaboration. It was also the remarkable beginning of a whole new way to observe the universe: gravitational astronomy. The Nobel Prize for "decisive contributions" to this triumph was awarded to only three members of the Collaboration: Rainer Weiss, Barry Barish, and me. But, in fact, it is the entire collaboration that deserves the primary credit. For this reason, in accepting the Nobel Prize, I regard myself as an icon for the Collaboration.

Additional Information

© 2019 The Nobel Foundation. Received: September 6, 2018; Published online: December 10, 2018; Issue Online: 09 January 2019. The publisher thanks the Nobel Foundation, Stockholm, for the permission to publish this lecture. Kip S. Thorne – Nobel Lecture. NobelPrize.org. Nobel Media AB 2018. Fri. 7 Dec 2018. I gratefully acknowledge the US National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Sherman Fairchild Foundation for funding my theory group's gravitational-wave research. The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Additional details

Created:
August 19, 2023
Modified:
October 20, 2023