Rainer Weiss Age, Wiki and Bio

Rainer Weiss

Quick Info

ProfessionPhysicist
NationalityAmerican
Date of Birth29/09/1932
Age91 years
BirthplaceBerlin, Germany

Physical Stats & More

Height173 cm
Weight75 kg
Eye ColorDark Brown
Hair ColorWhite (Semi-bald)

Educational Qualification(s)

SchoolColumbia Grammar & Preparatory School, New York City
CollegeMassachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Qualifications
  • B.S.
  • Ph.D.
  • Postdoctoral Scholar

Personal Life

Zodiac SignLibra
HometownNew York City, USA

Relationships & More

Marital StatusMarried
SpouseRebecca Young (Retired Librarian)
Marriage Date1959
Children
SonBenjamin (Art Historian)
DaughterSarah Weiss (Ethnomusicologist)

Family

ReligionJudaism

Career

Career Highlights
  • Started working at MIT as a faculty in 1964
  • Formed a research group in RLE at MIT for cosmology and gravitation in the mid-1960s
  • Appointed chairperson of NASA committee for cosmology and gravitation in 1975
  • Key role in initiating the LIGO project with Caltech and MIT in 1983
  • Received Gruber Prize in Cosmology in 2006
  • Awarded Einstein Prize in 2007

Favourites

Hobbies
  • Listening to classical music
  • Playing piano
  • Swimming
  • Hiking
Favorite Musicians
  • Mozart
  • Beethoven
  • Franz Schubert

Some Lesser Known Facts

He was born to a Jewish family and fled Nazi rule during his early life.
He earned a scholarship to Columbia Grammar & Preparatory School.
He launched the LIGO project aimed at identifying gravitational waves.
In 2017, he was honored with the Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on the LIGO detector.