Multimedia Gallery
LIGO: Looking Forward - An interview with the winners of the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics
In 2017, Rainer Weiss, Barry C. Barish and Kip S. Thorne were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for their efforts to find gravitational waves, energetic ripples in the fabric of space-time. First predicted by Albert Einstein a century before, the waves remained undetected until 2015 when NSF's Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO) captured them emanating from a pair of colliding black holes. Weiss, Barish and Thorne helped lead the conception, construction and management of LIGO, an effort that spanned four decades and an NSF investment of more than $1 billion. In this interview with the agency's Josh Chamot, the three pioneers reveal what the future holds for LIGO, and the lingering questions about the universe that it may one day answer.
Credit: NSF
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