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Episode details

Radio 4,4 mins

Nobel for scientists who proved Einstein's theory

The World Tonight

Available for over a year

Professor Rainer Weiss of MIT has won the 2017 Nobel prize for Physics along with fellow physicists Barry Barish and Kip Thorne. Their discovery of gravitational waves proved a key aspect of Albert Einstein's General Theory of Relativity. Gravitational waves are generated when black holes collide, and the scientists found a way to measure them by using lasers in long tunnels. Professor Weiss tells us that the journey in science is as important as the destination, that he hopes the process of scientific proof will show you can't make up the facts, and that - at 85 - he has no intention of retiring. (Image: Professor Rainer Weiss Credit: Getty Images.)

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