Rainer Weiss

Nobel Prize-winning American physicist

Rainer Weiss
Weiss in June 2018
Born	(1932-09-29) September 29, 1932 (age 91) Berlin, Germany
Education	Massachusetts Institute of Technology (BS, PhD)
Known for	Pioneering laser interferometric gravitational wave observation
Awards	Einstein Prize (2007) Special Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics (2016) Gruber Prize in Cosmology (2016) Shaw Prize (2016) Kavli Prize (2016) Harvey Prize (2016) Princess of Asturias Award (2017) Nobel Prize in Physics (2017)
Scientific career
Fields	Physics Laser physics Experimental gravitation Cosmic background measurements
Institutions	Massachusetts Institute of Technology Princeton University Tufts University
Thesis	Stark Effect and Hyperfine Structure of Hydrogen Fluoride (1962)
Doctoral advisor	Jerrold R. Zacharias
Doctoral students	Nergis Mavalvala Philip K. Chapman Rana X. Adhikari
Other notable students	Bruce Allen Sarah Veatch

Rainer "Rai" Weiss (/waɪs/ WYSSE, German: [vaɪs]; born September 29, 1932) is a German-born American physicist, known for his contributions in gravitational physics and astrophysics. He is a professor of physics emeritus at MIT and an adjunct professor at LSU. He is best known for inventing the laser interferometric technique which is the basic operation of LIGO. He was Chair of the COBE Science Working Group.^[1]^[2]^[3]

In 2017, Weiss was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics, along with Kip Thorne and Barry Barish, "for decisive contributions to the LIGO detector and the observation of gravitational waves".^[4]^[5]^[6]^[7]

Weiss has helped realize a number of challenging experimental tests of fundamental physics. He is a member of the Fermilab Holometer experiment, which uses a 40m laser interferometer to measure properties of space and time at quantum scale and provide Planck-precision tests of quantum holographic fluctuation.^[8]^[9]

Early life and education

Rainer Weiss was born in Berlin, Germany, the son of Gertrude Loesner and Frederick A. Weiss.^[10]^[11] His father, a physician, neurologist, and psychoanalyst, was forced out of Germany by Nazis because he was Jewish and an active member of the Communist Party. His mother, an actress, was Christian.^[12] His aunt was the sociologist Hilda Weiss.

The family fled first to Prague, but Germany's occupation of Czechoslovakia after the 1938 Munich Agreement caused them to flee again; the philanthropic Stix family of St. Louis helped them obtain visas to enter the United States.^[13] Weiss spent his youth in New York City, where he attended Columbia Grammar School. He studied at MIT, dropped out during his junior year,^[14] but eventually returned to receive his S.B. degree in 1955 and Ph.D. degree in 1962 under Jerrold Zacharias.^[15]

He taught at Tufts University from 1960 to 1962, was a postdoctoral scholar at Princeton University from 1962 to 1964, and then joined the faculty at MIT in 1964.^[10]

In a 2022 interview given to Federal University of Pará in Brazil, Weiss talks about his life and career, the memories of his childhood and youth, his undergraduate and graduate studies at MIT, and the future of gravitational waves astronomy.^[16]

Achievements

Weiss brought two fields of fundamental physics research from birth to maturity: characterization of the cosmic background radiation,^[3] and interferometric gravitational wave observation.

In 1973 he made pioneering measurements of the spectrum of the cosmic microwave background radiation, taken from a weather balloon, showing that the microwave background exhibited the thermal spectrum characteristic of the remnant radiation from the Big Bang.^[14] He later became co-founder and science advisor of the NASA Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) satellite,^[1] which made detailed mapping of the radiation.

Weiss also pioneered the concept of using lasers for an interferometric gravitational wave detector, suggesting that the path length required for such a detector would necessitate kilometer-scale arms. He built a prototype in the 1970s, following earlier work by Robert L. Forward.^[17]^[18] He co-founded the NSF LIGO (gravitational-wave detection) project,^[19] which was based on his report "A study of a long Baseline Gravitational Wave Antenna System".^[20]

Both of these efforts couple challenges in instrument science with physics important to the understanding of the Universe.^[21]

In February 2016, he was one of the four scientists of LIGO/Virgo collaboration presenting at the press conference for the announcement that the first direct gravitational wave observation had been made in September 2015.^[22]^[23]^[24]^[25]^[a]

Honors and awards

Rainer Weiss has been recognized by numerous awards including:

In 2006, with John C. Mather, he and the COBE team received the Gruber Prize in Cosmology.^[2]
In 2007, with Ronald Drever, he was awarded the APS Einstein Prize for his work.^[26]
In 2016 and 2017, for the achievement of gravitational waves detection, he received:

The Special Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics,^[27]
Gruber Prize in Cosmology,^[28]
Shaw Prize,^[29]
Kavli Prize in Astrophysics^[30]
The Harvey Prize together with Kip Thorne and Ronald Drever.^[31]
The Smithsonian magazine's American Ingenuity Award in the Physical Science category, with Kip Thorne and Barry Barish.^[32]
The Willis E. Lamb Award for Laser Science and Quantum Optics, 2017.^[33]
Princess of Asturias Award (2017) (jointly with Kip Thorne and Barry Barish).^[34]
The Nobel Prize in Physics (2017) (jointly with Kip Thorne and Barry Barish)^[4]
Fellowship of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters^[35]

In 2018, he was awarded the American Astronomical Society's Joseph Weber Award for Astronomical Instrumentation "for his invention of the interferometric gravitational-wave detector, which led to the first detection of long-predicted gravitational waves."^[36]
In 2020 he was elected a Legacy Fellow of the American Astronomical Society.^[37]

Selected publications

Weiss, R.; Stroke, H.H.; Jaccarino, V.; Edmonds, D.S. (1957). "Magnetic Moments and Hyperfine Structures Anomalies of Cs₁₃₃, Cs₁₃₅ and Cs₁₃₇". Phys. Rev. 105 (2): 590–603. Bibcode:1957PhRv..105..590S. doi:10.1103/PhysRev.105.590.
R. Weiss (1961). "Molecular Beam Electron Bombardment Detector". Rev. Sci. Instrum. 32 (4): 397–401. Bibcode:1961RScI...32..397W. doi:10.1063/1.1717386.
R. Weiss & L. Grodzins (1962). "A Search for a Frequency Shift of 14.4 keV Photons on Traversing Radiation Fields". Physics Letters. 1 (8): 342. Bibcode:1962PhL.....1..342W. doi:10.1016/0031-9163(62)90420-1.
Weiss, Rainer (1963). "Stark Effect and Hyperfine Structure of Hydrogen Fluoride". Phys. Rev. 131 (2): 659–665. Bibcode:1963PhRv..131..659W. doi:10.1103/PhysRev.131.659.
R. Weiss & B. Block (1965). "A Gravimeter to Monitor the _OS_O Dilational Model of the Earth". J. Geophys. Res. 70 (22): 5615. Bibcode:1965JGR....70.5615W. doi:10.1029/JZ070i022p05615.
R. Weiss & G. Blum (1967). "Experimental Test of the Freundlich Red-Shift Hypothesis". Phys. Rev. 155 (5): 1412. Bibcode:1967PhRv..155.1412B. doi:10.1103/PhysRev.155.1412.
R. Weiss (1967). "Electric and Magnetic Field Probes". Am. J. Phys. 35 (11): 1047–1048. Bibcode:1967AmJPh..35.1047W. doi:10.1119/1.1973723.
R.Weiss and S. Ezekiel (1968). "Laser-Induced Fluorescence in a Molecular Beam of Iodine". Phys. Rev. Lett. 20 (3): 91–93. Bibcode:1968PhRvL..20...91E. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.20.91.
R. Weiss & D. Muehlner (1970). "A Measurement of the Isotropic Background Radiation in the Far Infrared". Phys. Rev. Lett. 24 (13): 742. Bibcode:1970PhRvL..24..742M. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.24.742.
R. Weiss (1972). "Electromagnetically Coupled Broadband Gravitational Antenna" (PDF). Quarterly Progress Report, Research Laboratory of Electronics, MIT. 105: 54.
R. Weiss & D. Muehlner (1973). "Balloon Measurements of the Far Infrared Background Radiation". Phys. Rev. D. 7 (2): 326. Bibcode:1973PhRvD...7..326M. doi:10.1103/PhysRevD.7.326.
R. Weiss & D. Muehlner (1973). "Further Measurements of the Submillimeter Background at Balloon Altitude". Phys. Rev. Lett. 30 (16): 757. Bibcode:1973PhRvL..30..757M. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.30.757.
R. Weiss & D.K. Owens (1974). "Measurements of the Phase Fluctuations on a He-Ne Zeeman Laser". Rev. Sci. Instrum. 45 (9): 1060. Bibcode:1974RScI...45.1060O. doi:10.1063/1.1686809.
R. Weiss, D.K. Owens & D. Muehlner (1979). "A Large Beam Sky Survey at Millimeter and Submillimeter Wavelengths Made from Balloon Altitudes". Astrophysical Journal. 231: 702. Bibcode:1979ApJ...231..702O. doi:10.1086/157235.
Weiss, R.; Downey, P.M.; Bachner, F.J.; Donnelly, J.P.; Lindley, W.T.; Mountain, R.W.; Silversmith, D.J. (1980). "Monolithic Silicon Bolometers". Journal of Infrared and Millimeter Waves. 1 (6): 910. doi:10.1364/ao.23.000910. PMID 18204660.
R. Weiss (1980). "Measurements of the Cosmic Background Radiation". Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics. 18: 489–535. Bibcode:1980ARA&A..18..489W. doi:10.1146/annurev.aa.18.090180.002421.
R. Weiss (1980). "The COBE Project". Physica Scripta. 21 (5): 670. Bibcode:1980PhyS...21..670W. doi:10.1088/0031-8949/21/5/016. S2CID 250836076.
R. Weiss, S.S. Meyer & A.D. Jeffries (1983). "A Search for the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich Effect at Millimeter Wavelengths". Astrophys. J. Lett. 271: L1. Bibcode:1983ApJ...271L...1M. doi:10.1086/184080.
Weiss, R.; Halpern, M.; Benford, R.; Meyer, S.; Muehlner, D. (1988). "Measurements of the Anisotropy of the Cosmic Background Radiation and Diffuse Galactic Emission at Millimeter and Submillimeter Wavelengths". Astrophys. J. 332: 596. Bibcode:1988ApJ...332..596H. doi:10.1086/166679.
R. Weiss, J.C. Mather, E.S. Cheng, R.E. Eplee Jr., R.B. Isaacman, S.S. Meyer, R.A. Shafer, E.L. Wright, C.L. Bennett, N.W. Boggess, E. Dwek, S. Gulkis, M.G. Hauser, M. Janssen, T. Kelsall, P.M. Lubin, S.H. Moseley Jr., T.L. Murdock, R.F. Silverberg, G.F. Smoot and D.T. Wilkinson (1990). "A Preliminary Measurement of the Cosmic Microwave Background Spectrum by the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) Satellite". Astrophys. J. 354: L37. Bibcode:1990ApJ...354L..37M. doi:10.1086/185717.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
R. Weiss, G. Smoot, C. Bennett, R. Weber, J. Maruschak, R. Ratliff, M. Janssen, J. Chitwood, L. Hilliard, M. Lecha, R. Mills, R. Patschke, C. Richards, C. Backus, J. Mather, M. Hauser, D. Wilkenson, S. Gulkis, N. Boggess, E. Cheng, T. Kelsall, P. Lubin, S. Meyer, H. Moseley, T. Murdock, R. Shafer, R. Silverberg and E. Wright (1990). "COBE Differential Microwave Radiometers: Instrument Design and Implementation". Astrophys. J. 360: 685. Bibcode:1990ApJ...360..685S. doi:10.1086/169154.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
R. Weiss (1990). "Interferometric Gravitational Wave Detectors". In N. Ashby; D. Bartlett; W. Wyss (eds.). Proceedings of the Twelfth International Conference on General Relativity and Gravitation. Cambridge University Press. pp. 331. ISBN 9780521384285.
R. Weiss, D. Shoemaker, P. Fritschel, J. Glaime and N. Christensen (1991). "Prototype Michelson Interferometer with Fabry-Perot Cavities". Applied Optics. 30 (22): 3133–8. Bibcode:1991ApOpt..30.3133S. doi:10.1364/AO.30.003133. PMID 20706365.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)

Notes

^ Other physicists presenting were Gabriela González, David Reitze, Kip Thorne, and France A. Córdova from the NSF.

References

^ ^a ^b Lars Brink (June 2, 2014). Nobel Lectures in Physics (2006–2010). World Scientific. pp. 25–. ISBN 978-981-4612-70-8.
^ ^a ^b "NASA and COBE Scientists Win Top Cosmology Prize". NASA. 2006. Archived from the original on March 3, 2016. Retrieved February 22, 2016.
^ ^a ^b Weiss, Rainer (1980). "Measurements of the Cosmic Background Radiation". Annu. Rev. Astron. Astrophys. 18: 489–535. Bibcode:1980ARA&A..18..489W. doi:10.1146/annurev.aa.18.090180.002421.
^ ^a ^b "The Nobel Prize in Physics 2017". The Nobel Foundation. October 3, 2017. Retrieved October 3, 2017.
^ Rincon, Paul; Amos, Jonathan (October 3, 2017). "Einstein's waves win Nobel Prize". BBC News. Retrieved October 3, 2017.
^ Overbye, Dennis (October 3, 2017). "2017 Nobel Prize in Physics Awarded to LIGO Black Hole Researchers". The New York Times. Retrieved October 3, 2017.
^ Kaiser, David (October 3, 2017). "Learning from Gravitational Waves". The New York Times. Retrieved October 3, 2017.
^ Emily Tapp (October 6, 2017). "Why we built the Holometer". IOP, Classical and Quantum Gravity journal. Retrieved October 22, 2017.
^ Aaron Chou; et al. (2017). "The Holometer: an instrument to probe Planckian quantum geometry". Class. Quantum Grav. 34 (6): 065005. arXiv:1611.08265. Bibcode:2017CQGra..34f5005C. doi:10.1088/1361-6382/aa5e5c. S2CID 119065032.
^ ^a ^b "Weiss CV at mit.edu" (PDF).
^ "MIT physicist Rainer Weiss shares Nobel Prize in physics". MIT News. October 3, 2017.
^ "Rainer Weiss Biography" (PDF). kavliprize.org. Archived from the original (PDF) on October 13, 2017. Retrieved July 7, 2018.
^ Shirley K. Cohen (May 10, 2000). "Interview with Rainer Weiss" (PDF). Oral History Project, California Institute of Technology. Retrieved October 22, 2017.
^ ^a ^b Cho, Adrian (August 4, 2016). "Meet the College Dropout who Invented the Gravitational Wave Detector", Science. Retrieved May 20, 2019.
^ Weiss, Rainer (1962). Stark effect and hyperfine structure of hydrogen fluoride (Ph.D.). Massachusetts Institute of Technology. OCLC 33374441 – via ProQuest.
^ Interview with Rainer Weiss (2017 Physics Nobel Prize Laureate). Federal University of Pará. 2022.
^ Cho, Adrian (October 3, 2017). "Ripples in space: U.S. trio wins physics Nobel for discovery of gravitational waves," Science. Retrieved May 20, 2019.
^ Cervantes-Cota, Jorge L., Galindo-Uribarri, Salvador, and Smoot, George F. (2016). "A Brief History of Gravitational Waves," Universe, 2, no. 3, 22. Retrieved May 20, 2019.
^ Mervis, Jeffrey. "Got gravitational waves? Thank NSF's approach to building big facilities". Science Magazine. ISSN 1095-9203. Retrieved November 14, 2017.
^ Linsay, P., Saulson, P., and Weiss, R. (1983). "A Study of a Long Baseline Gravitational Wave Antenna System, NSF. Retrieved May 20, 2019.
^ David Shoemaker (2012). "The Evolution of Advanced LIGO" (PDF). LIGO Magazine (1).
^ Twilley, Nicola. "Gravitational Waves Exist: The Inside Story of How Scientists Finally Found Them". The New Yorker. ISSN 0028-792X. Retrieved February 11, 2016.
^ Abbott, B.P.; et al. (2016). "Observation of Gravitational Waves from a Binary Black Hole Merger". Phys. Rev. Lett. 116 (6): 061102. arXiv:1602.03837. Bibcode:2016PhRvL.116f1102A. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.116.061102. PMID 26918975. S2CID 124959784.
^ Naeye, Robert (February 11, 2016). "Gravitational Wave Detection Heralds New Era of Science". Sky and Telescope. Retrieved February 11, 2016.
^ Castelvecchi, Davide; Witze, Alexandra (February 11, 2016). "Einstein's gravitational waves found at last". Nature News. doi:10.1038/nature.2016.19361. S2CID 182916902. Retrieved February 11, 2016.
^ "Prize Recipient". aps.org.
^ "Breakthrough Prize – Special Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics Awarded For Detection of Gravitational Waves 100 Years After Albert Einstein Predicted Their Existence". breakthroughprize.org. San Francisco. May 2, 2016. Retrieved October 3, 2017.
^ "2016 Gruber Cosmology Prize Press Release". gruber.yale.edu. The Gruber Foundation. May 4, 2016. Retrieved October 3, 2017.
^ "Shaw Prize 2016". Archived from the original on March 3, 2018. Retrieved May 31, 2016.
^ Prize, The Kavli. "9 Scientific Pioneers Receive The 2016 Kavli Prizes". www.prnewswire.com (Press release).
^ Harvey Prize 2016
^ "Meet the Team of Scientists Who Discovered Gravitational Waves". Smithsonian Magazine.
^ "The Willis E. Lamb Award for Laser Science and Quantum Optics". Retrieved March 17, 2017.
^ "The Princess of Asturias Foundation". www.fpa.es.
^ "Group 2: Astronomy, Physics and Geophysics". Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters. Archived from the original on December 22, 2017. Retrieved December 22, 2017.
^ "Joseph Weber Award for Astronomical Instrumentation". American Astronomical Society.
^ "AAS Fellows". AAS. Retrieved October 1, 2020.

External links

Media related to Rainer Weiss at Wikimedia Commons
Rainer Weiss's website at MIT
LIGO Group at the MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research
Rainer Weiss at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
Q&A: Rainer Weiss on LIGO's origins at news.mit.edu
Archived at Ghostarchive and the Wayback Machine: "UW Frontiers of Physics Lecture: Dr. Rainer Weiss, Fall 2016, recorded October 25, U. Washington College of Arts & Sciences". YouTube. November 10, 2016.
Rainer Weiss on Nobelprize.org including the Nobel Lecture 8 December 2017 LIGO and Gravitational Waves I

Relativity

Special
relativity

Background	Principle of relativity (Galilean relativity Galilean transformation) Special relativity Doubly special relativity
Fundamental concepts	Frame of reference Speed of light Hyperbolic orthogonality Rapidity Maxwell's equations Proper length Proper time Proper acceleration Relativistic mass
Formulation	Lorentz transformation
Phenomena	Time dilation Mass–energy equivalence (E=mc²) Length contraction Relativity of simultaneity Relativistic Doppler effect Thomas precession Ladder paradox Twin paradox Terrell rotation
Spacetime	Light cone World line Minkowski diagram Biquaternions Minkowski space

General
relativity

Background	Introduction Mathematical formulation
Fundamental concepts	Equivalence principle Riemannian geometry Penrose diagram Geodesics Mach's principle
Formulation	ADM formalism BSSN formalism Einstein field equations Linearized gravity Post-Newtonian formalism Raychaudhuri equation Hamilton–Jacobi–Einstein equation Ernst equation
Phenomena	Black hole Event horizon Singularity Two-body problem Gravitational waves: astronomy detectors (LIGO and collaboration Virgo LISA Pathfinder GEO) Hulse–Taylor binary Other tests: precession of Mercury lensing (together with Einstein cross and Einstein rings) redshift Shapiro delay frame-dragging / geodetic effect (Lense–Thirring precession) pulsar timing arrays
Advanced theories	Brans–Dicke theory Kaluza–Klein Quantum gravity
Solutions	Cosmological: Friedmann–Lemaître–Robertson–Walker (Friedmann equations) Lemaître–Tolman Kasner BKL singularity Gödel Milne Spherical: Schwarzschild (interior Tolman–Oppenheimer–Volkoff equation) Reissner–Nordström Axisymmetric: Kerr (Kerr–Newman) Weyl−Lewis−Papapetrou Taub–NUT van Stockum dust discs Others: pp-wave Ozsváth–Schücking Alcubierre In computational physics: Numerical relativity

Scientists

Category

v t e Laureates of the Nobel Prize in Physics
1901–1925	1901: Röntgen 1902: Lorentz / Zeeman 1903: Becquerel / P. Curie / M. Curie 1904: Rayleigh 1905: Lenard 1906: J. J. Thomson 1907: Michelson 1908: Lippmann 1909: Marconi / Braun 1910: Van der Waals 1911: Wien 1912: Dalén 1913: Kamerlingh Onnes 1914: Laue 1915: W. L. Bragg / W. H. Bragg 1916 1917: Barkla 1918: Planck 1919: Stark 1920: Guillaume 1921: Einstein 1922: N. Bohr 1923: Millikan 1924: M. Siegbahn 1925: Franck / Hertz
1926–1950	1926: Perrin 1927: Compton / C. Wilson 1928: O. Richardson 1929: De Broglie 1930: Raman 1931 1932: Heisenberg 1933: Schrödinger / Dirac 1934 1935: Chadwick 1936: Hess / C. D. Anderson 1937: Davisson / G. P. Thomson 1938: Fermi 1939: Lawrence 1940 1941 1942 1943: Stern 1944: Rabi 1945: Pauli 1946: Bridgman 1947: Appleton 1948: Blackett 1949: Yukawa 1950: Powell
1951–1975	1951: Cockcroft / Walton 1952: Bloch / Purcell 1953: Zernike 1954: Born / Bothe 1955: Lamb / Kusch 1956: Shockley / Bardeen / Brattain 1957: C. N. Yang / T. D. Lee 1958: Cherenkov / Frank / Tamm 1959: Segrè / Chamberlain 1960: Glaser 1961: Hofstadter / Mössbauer 1962: Landau 1963: Wigner / Goeppert Mayer / Jensen 1964: Townes / Basov / Prokhorov 1965: Tomonaga / Schwinger / Feynman 1966: Kastler 1967: Bethe 1968: Alvarez 1969: Gell-Mann 1970: Alfvén / Néel 1971: Gabor 1972: Bardeen / Cooper / Schrieffer 1973: Esaki / Giaever / Josephson 1974: Ryle / Hewish 1975: A. Bohr / Mottelson / Rainwater
1976–2000	1976: Richter / Ting 1977: P. W. Anderson / Mott / Van Vleck 1978: Kapitsa / Penzias / R. Wilson 1979: Glashow / Salam / Weinberg 1980: Cronin / Fitch 1981: Bloembergen / Schawlow / K. Siegbahn 1982: K. Wilson 1983: Chandrasekhar / Fowler 1984: Rubbia / Van der Meer 1985: von Klitzing 1986: Ruska / Binnig / Rohrer 1987: Bednorz / Müller 1988: Lederman / Schwartz / Steinberger 1989: Ramsey / Dehmelt / Paul 1990: Friedman / Kendall / R. Taylor 1991: de Gennes 1992: Charpak 1993: Hulse / J. Taylor 1994: Brockhouse / Shull 1995: Perl / Reines 1996: D. Lee / Osheroff / R. Richardson 1997: Chu / Cohen-Tannoudji / Phillips 1998: Laughlin / Störmer / Tsui 1999: 't Hooft / Veltman 2000: Alferov / Kroemer / Kilby
2001– present	2001: Cornell / Ketterle / Wieman 2002: Davis / Koshiba / Giacconi 2003: Abrikosov / Ginzburg / Leggett 2004: Gross / Politzer / Wilczek 2005: Glauber / Hall / Hänsch 2006: Mather / Smoot 2007: Fert / Grünberg 2008: Nambu / Kobayashi / Maskawa 2009: Kao / Boyle / Smith 2010: Geim / Novoselov 2011: Perlmutter / Schmidt / Riess 2012: Wineland / Haroche 2013: Englert / Higgs 2014: Akasaki / Amano / Nakamura 2015: Kajita / McDonald 2016: Thouless / Haldane / Kosterlitz 2017: Weiss / Barish / Thorne 2018: Ashkin / Mourou / Strickland 2019: Peebles / Mayor / Queloz 2020: Penrose / Genzel / Ghez 2021: Parisi / Hasselmann / Manabe 2022: Aspect / Clauser / Zeilinger 2023: Agostini / Krausz / L'Huillier

v t e 2017 Nobel Prize laureates
Chemistry	Jacques Dubochet (Switzerland) Joachim Frank (Germany/United States) Richard Henderson (United Kingdom)
Literature (2017)	Kazuo Ishiguro (United Kingdom)
Peace (2017)	International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (Switzerland)
Physics	Rainer Weiss (United States) Barry Barish (United States) Kip Thorne (United States)
Physiology or Medicine	Jeffrey C. Hall (United States) Michael Rosbash (United States) Michael W. Young (United States)
Economic Sciences	Richard Thaler (United States)
Nobel Prize recipients 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022

v t e Breakthrough Prize laureates
Mathematics	Simon Donaldson, Maxim Kontsevich, Jacob Lurie, Terence Tao and Richard Taylor (2015) Ian Agol (2016) Jean Bourgain (2017) Christopher Hacon, James McKernan (2018) Vincent Lafforgue (2019) Alex Eskin (2020) Martin Hairer (2021) Takuro Mochizuki (2022) Daniel A. Spielman (2023) Simon Brendle (2024)
Fundamental physics	Nima Arkani-Hamed, Alan Guth, Alexei Kitaev, Maxim Kontsevich, Andrei Linde, Juan Maldacena, Nathan Seiberg, Ashoke Sen, Edward Witten (2012) Special: Stephen Hawking, Peter Jenni, Fabiola Gianotti (ATLAS), Michel Della Negra, Tejinder Virdee, Guido Tonelli, Joseph Incandela (CMS) and Lyn Evans (LHC) (2013) Alexander Polyakov (2013) Michael Green and John Henry Schwarz (2014) Saul Perlmutter and members of the Supernova Cosmology Project; Brian Schmidt, Adam Riess and members of the High-Z Supernova Team (2015) Special: Ronald Drever, Kip Thorne, Rainer Weiss and contributors to LIGO project (2016) Yifang Wang, Kam-Biu Luk and the Daya Bay team, Atsuto Suzuki and the KamLAND team, Kōichirō Nishikawa and the K2K / T2K team, Arthur B. McDonald and the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory team, Takaaki Kajita and Yōichirō Suzuki and the Super-Kamiokande team (2016) Joseph Polchinski, Andrew Strominger, Cumrun Vafa (2017) Charles L. Bennett, Gary Hinshaw, Norman Jarosik, Lyman Page Jr., David Spergel (2018) Special: Jocelyn Bell Burnell (2018) Charles Kane and Eugene Mele (2019) Special: Sergio Ferrara, Daniel Z. Freedman, Peter van Nieuwenhuizen (2019) The Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration (2020) Eric Adelberger, Jens H. Gundlach and Blayne Heckel (2021) Special: Steven Weinberg (2021) Hidetoshi Katori and Jun Ye (2022) Charles H. Bennett, Gilles Brassard, David Deutsch, Peter W. Shor (2023) John Cardy and Alexander Zamolodchikov (2024)
Life sciences	Cornelia Bargmann, David Botstein, Lewis C. Cantley, Hans Clevers, Titia de Lange, Napoleone Ferrara, Eric Lander, Charles Sawyers, Robert Weinberg, Shinya Yamanaka and Bert Vogelstein (2013) James P. Allison, Mahlon DeLong, Michael N. Hall, Robert S. Langer, Richard P. Lifton and Alexander Varshavsky (2014) Alim Louis Benabid, Charles David Allis, Victor Ambros, Gary Ruvkun, Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier (2015) Edward Boyden, Karl Deisseroth, John Hardy, Helen Hobbs and Svante Pääbo (2016) Stephen J. Elledge, Harry F. Noller, Roeland Nusse, Yoshinori Ohsumi, Huda Zoghbi (2017) Joanne Chory, Peter Walter, Kazutoshi Mori, Kim Nasmyth, Don W. Cleveland (2018) C. Frank Bennett and Adrian R. Krainer, Angelika Amon, Xiaowei Zhuang, Zhijian Chen (2019) Jeffrey M. Friedman, Franz-Ulrich Hartl, Arthur L. Horwich, David Julius, Virginia Man-Yee Lee (2020) David Baker, Catherine Dulac, Dennis Lo, Richard J. Youle [de] (2021) Jeffery W. Kelly, Katalin Karikó, Drew Weissman, Shankar Balasubramanian, David Klenerman and Pascal Mayer (2022) Clifford P. Brangwynne, Anthony A. Hyman, Demis Hassabis, John Jumper, Emmanuel Mignot, Masashi Yanagisawa (2023) Carl June, Michel Sadelain, Sabine Hadida, Paul Negulescu, Fredrick Van Goor, Thomas Gasser, Ellen Sidransky and Andrew Singleton (2024)

v t e Kavli Prize laureates
Astrophysics	Maarten Schmidt, Donald Lynden-Bell (2008) Jerry E. Nelson, Raymond N. Wilson, Roger Angel (2010) David C. Jewitt, Jane Luu, Michael E. Brown (2012) Alan Guth, Andrei Linde, Alexei Starobinsky (2014) Ronald Drever, Kip Thorne, Rainer Weiss (2016) Ewine van Dishoeck (2018) Andrew Fabian (2020) Roger Ulrich, Jørgen Christensen-Dalsgaard, Conny Aerts (2022)
Nanoscience	Louis E. Brus, Sumio Iijima (2008) Donald Eigler, Nadrian Seeman (2010) Mildred Dresselhaus (2012) Thomas Ebbesen, Stefan Hell, John Pendry (2014) Gerd Binnig, Christoph Gerber, Calvin Quate (2016) Emmanuelle Charpentier, Jennifer Doudna, Virginijus Šikšnys (2018) Harald Rose, Maximilian Haider, Knut Urban, Ondrej Krivanek (2020) Jacob Sagiv, Ralph G. Nuzzo, David L. Allara, George M. Whitesides (2022)
Neuroscience	Sten Grillner, Thomas Jessell, Pasko Rakic (2008) Richard Scheller, Thomas C. Südhof, James Rothman (2010) Cornelia Bargmann, Winfried Denk, Ann Graybiel (2012) Brenda Milner, John O'Keefe, Marcus Raichle (2014) Eve Marder, Michael Merzenich, Carla J. Shatz (2016) A. James Hudspeth, Robert Fettiplace, Christine Petit (2018) David Julius, Ardem Patapoutian (2020) Jean-Louis Mandel, Harry T. Orr, Christopher A. Walsh, Huda Zoghbi (2022)

v t e Shaw Prize laureates
Astronomy	Jim Peebles (2004) Geoffrey Marcy and Michel Mayor (2005) Saul Perlmutter, Adam Riess and Brian Schmidt (2006) Peter Goldreich (2007) Reinhard Genzel (2008) Frank Shu (2009) Charles Bennett, Lyman Page and David Spergel (2010) Enrico Costa and Gerald Fishman (2011) David C. Jewitt and Jane Luu (2012) Steven Balbus and John F. Hawley (2013) Daniel Eisenstein, Shaun Cole and John A. Peacock (2014) William J. Borucki (2015) Ronald Drever, Kip Thorne and Rainer Weiss (2016) Simon White (2017) Jean-Loup Puget (2018) Edward C. Stone (2019) Roger Blandford (2020) Victoria Kaspi and Chryssa Kouveliotou (2021) Lennart Lindegren and Michael Perryman (2022) Matthew Bailes, Duncan Lorimer and Maura McLaughlin (2023)
Life science and medicine	Stanley Norman Cohen, Herbert Boyer, Yuet-Wai Kan and Richard Doll (2004) Michael Berridge (2005) Xiaodong Wang (2006) Robert Lefkowitz (2007) Ian Wilmut, Keith H. S. Campbell and Shinya Yamanaka (2008) Douglas Coleman and Jeffrey Friedman (2009) David Julius (2010) Jules Hoffmann, Ruslan Medzhitov and Bruce Beutler (2011) Franz-Ulrich Hartl and Arthur L. Horwich (2012) Jeffrey C. Hall, Michael Rosbash and Michael W. Young (2013) Kazutoshi Mori and Peter Walter (2014) Bonnie Bassler and Everett Peter Greenberg (2015) Adrian Bird and Huda Zoghbi (2016) Ian R. Gibbons and Ronald Vale (2017) Mary-Claire King (2018) Maria Jasin (2019) Gero Miesenböck, Peter Hegemann and Georg Nagel (2020) Scott D. Emr (2021) Paul A. Negulescu and Michael J. Welsh (2022) Patrick Cramer and Eva Nogales (2023)
Mathematical science	Shiing-Shen Chern (2004) Andrew Wiles (2005) David Mumford and Wentsun Wu (2006) Robert Langlands and Richard Taylor (2007) Vladimir Arnold and Ludwig Faddeev (2008) Simon Donaldson and Clifford Taubes (2009) Jean Bourgain (2010) Demetrios Christodoulou and Richard S. Hamilton (2011) Maxim Kontsevich (2012) David Donoho (2013) George Lusztig (2014) Gerd Faltings and Henryk Iwaniec (2015) Nigel Hitchin (2016) János Kollár and Claire Voisin (2017) Luis Caffarelli (2018) Michel Talagrand (2019) Alexander Beilinson and David Kazhdan (2020) Jean-Michel Bismut and Jeff Cheeger (2021) Noga Alon and Ehud Hrushovski (2022) Vladimir Drinfeld and Shing-Tung Yau (2023)