Earlier today, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences (Kungliga Vetenskapsakademein) announced that the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics was jointly awarded to Rainer Weiss, Barry C. Barish, and Kip S. Thorne for their contributions to the LIGO detector and the successful detection of gravitational waves. This is an exciting recognition of the important role that the LIGO Scientific Collaboration has played in the advancement of our understanding of the universe, as well as the contributions that the UW-Milwaukee Physics Department have made to the project. 32 members of the Physics Department are currently contributing to the research that the LIGO Scientific Collaboration performs.

The Nobel Prize in Physics, first awarded in 1901, is widely considered to be one of the most prestigious awards in the scientific community: past recipients have included Marie Curie, Werner Heisenberg, and Niels Bohr.

For more information about the LIGO Scientific Collaboration, click here to see the LIGO homepage.