Who?
Nobel prize co-winner in n2017 for his work on LIGO and the detection of gravitational waves. Also, according to Wikipedia:
Weiss helped realize a number of challenging experimental tests of fundamental physics. He was a member of the Fermilab Holometer experiment, which uses a 40m laser interferometer to measure properties of space and time at quantum scale and provide Planck-precision tests of quantum holographic fluctuation.
He was also my instructor in the Junior Physics Lab (meaning the physics lab for junior year, not like the junior woodchucks). His office, in the old wooden creaky-floored Building 20 at MIT, aka “The Magic Incubator” because of all the ideas that came out of it. (The supposedly “temporary” WWII-era building was finally torn down in 1998 and replaced by the Gehry-designed State Center, although a running joke is that it’s still there, protected by a Star Trek-like “cloaking device”) Weiss’ office smelled heavily of his pipe smoke and tobacco. He was quick with a good analogy an explanation for the physics students taking his course.
Considering all the tobacco, I’m sort of surprised he lived to age 92. ( also could’ve sworn I’d read of his death earlier. His path to professorship and eventual fame was not a smooth one, but impressive nonetheless.
