Nobel Prize winner in physics and MIT professor emeritus Rainer Weiss will be giving a free lecture on physics, the universe, and fleeing Nazi Germany at UMass Dartmouth on Friday, May 31.

During the talk, Weiss will touch on his journey out of Germany as a child in the 1930s as well as his work on gravitational waves with Caltech’s Kip Thorne and Barry Barish that ultimately won all three the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2017.

The lecture will be held in the Main Auditorium from 6 to 7 p.m.

Gravitational waves were a major component in Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity, but remained unseen until Weiss and his team detected them in 2015 from a collision of two black holes 1.3 billion years ago.

Weiss will describe the difficult 100-year history of gravitational waves, including how he used lasers to observe their existence.

He will also offer a vision for the future of astronomy and how important the role of science is for human progress.

The instruments and methods for data analysis that enable the measurement of gravitational waves will be on display.

The lecture is part of the 22nd annual Eastern Gravity Meeting. The regional meet-up is open to researchers of all levels, from undergraduate students to faculty in all areas of gravitational physics, including classical, quantum, theory, observation, and computation.

Members of the public are encouraged to attend. Parking will be available in Lots 13 and 14 on the main campus at 285 Old Westport Road, Dartmouth.

Please click here to register for the free event.