Reitze wins 2017 National Academy of Sciences Award for scientific discovery.
On April 20, 2017, David Reitze, UF professor of physics and current director of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Waves Observatory (LIGO) at Caltech, will be recognized by the National Academy of Sciences for his leadership at LIGO, which has detected two chirps of gravitational waves from colliding black holes. The discovery is significant because it demonstrates that the fabric of space-time is rippled by enormous outputs of energy, as Albert Einstein predicted in 1916. Learn more about gravitational waves and their detection, below.
Reitze was instrumental in LIGO’s growth into a state-of-the-art facility capable of precise detection of faraway, long-ago cosmic events. He built an interdisciplinary team of scientists, several of whom continue to work at UF on its LIGO team. Indeed, the UF LIGO team designed the algorithm that enabled the detection of the gravitational waves.
Further Reading
- Read more at The Alligator.
- Read the LIGO press release.