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by Randy CassinghamRandy Cassingham's Honorary Unsubscribe Recognizes the Unknown, the Forgotten and the Obscure People who Had an Impact on Our Lives
Joseph Weber
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A physicist, Weber is credited with discovering the principle behind the operation of lasers and masers (essentially, microwave lasers), and was the first to speak of them in public -- in 1952. But fame eluded him: the 1964 Nobel Prize for lasers went to three others. Weber quickly realized lasers might be useful in proving Einstein's theory of gravitational waves. Despite years of research, he was never able to detect a gravitational wave, but the most powerful laser experiment for that purpose is still currently being built. "He is regarded universally as the father of this field of gravitational wave detection," said Dr. Kip Thorne, a professor of theoretical physics at Caltech. Weber died September 30 in Pittsburgh from non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. He was 81.
From This is True for 8 October 2000
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