Stanley E. Whitcomb
Stanley Ernest Whitcomb (born January 23, 1951 in Denver ) is an American physicist and senior scientist at the LIGO laser interferometer , with whom the direct detection of gravitational waves was made possible in 2016 .
Whitcomb studied physics at Caltech with a bachelor's degree in 1973, spent a year at Cambridge University and received his PhD from the University of Chicago in 1980 (dissertation was on astronomy in the far infrared and sub-millimeter wavelengths). After that he was an assistant professor at Caltech from 1980, when experimental gravitational wave research with lasers began there. Robbie Vogt, Ronald Drever (who came from Glasgow) and Kip Thorne were significantly involved . In 1985 he moved to Northrop Corporation as a research engineer for electronics. From 1989 to 1991 he was a Senior System Specialist at Loral Electro-Optical Systems. In 1991 he returned to LIGO as Deputy Director under Director Robbie Vogt. At the time, LIGO was already a joint project between MIT (where Rainer Weiss worked on laser interferometers) and Caltech.
In 2017 he received the Henry Draper Medal with Barry Barish .
Web links
- Biography at Expertise Finder
- Oral History Interview, Caltech 1997
- LIGO`s Beginning, Caltech 2016, Interview Barish, Whitcomb
Individual evidence
- ↑ Birth and career data according to American Men and Women of Science , Thomson Gale 2004
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Whitcomb, Stanley |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Whitcomb, Stanley Ernest |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American physicist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | January 23, 1951 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Denver |