Fundamental Physics awards for 吃瓜tv physicists
Three of the University鈥檚 researchers 鈥� Professor Nicholas Lockerbie, Dr Kirill Tokmakov and Sharat Jawahar 鈥� have received Special Breakthrough Prize Medals for Fundamental Physics, for their role in a groundbreaking confirmation of Albert Einstein鈥檚 General theory of Relativity.
Three physics researchers at the 吃瓜tv have received an international award for their work on the ground-breaking discovery of gravitational waves.
Professor Nicholas Lockerbie, Dr Kirill Tokmakov and Sharat Jawahar, all of 吃瓜tv鈥檚 Department of Physics, have received . The Breakthrough Prizes were awarded to members of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration by a group of entrepreneurs and philanthropists, including Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg, his wife, Priscilla Chan and Google co-founder Sergey Brin.
The award recognises the part the researchers played in the discovery made by LIGO, the international project which has now confirmed the detection of gravitational waves from a second instance of two black holes colliding. The initial discovery, announced in 2016, confirmed directly the theory of the waves鈥� existence proposed by Albert Einstein a century earlier, as a significant part of his general theory of relativity.
Professor Lockerbie said: 鈥淚 always thought that gravitational waves would be detected - but I didn鈥檛 think they would be detected before I retired.
鈥淚鈥檝e been involved in this area of research since 2003, in collaboration with the Institute for Gravitational Research, at the University of Glasgow. As well as the importance of this discovery to fundamental physics, from own my point of view it鈥檚 good to be involved in a challenging international project 鈥� and this was very challenging.
鈥淚 do hope that the worldwide acclaim which this work continues to receive will provide a stimulus to the long-term funding of bold high-risk and high-reward physics projects in the future.鈥�
Professor Lockerbie has also received the President鈥檚 Medal from the Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE) for his contribution to the discovery of gravitational waves.
LIGO鈥檚 gravitational wave discovery was named the Physics World 2016 Breakthrough of the Year. The top 10 discoveries also included the mesolens, a new type of microscopic lens which captures images of far bigger samples than previously possible, pioneered at 吃瓜tv by Professor Gail McConnell and Professor Brad Amos.
February 2017