The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced today that it has awarded this year's Nobel Prize in physics to three scientists — Rainer Weiss, Barry C. Barish, and Kip S. Thorne — for their work in detecting gravitational waves. Albert Einstein predicted gravitational waves in his Theory of Relativity 100 years ago, but no one had previously observed them.
In 2016, Janna Levin, theoretical astrophysicist and author of the book Black Hole Blues and Other Songs from Outer Space, spoke about the 50-year search for these waves and explains why they are important.
As part of this talk, she described the work of MIT's Rainer Weiss and even predicted his Nobel Prize.
Watch Levin's full talk, originally published by The WGBH Forum Network on July 9, 2016.
