Princess of Asturias Award for Rai Weiss, Kip Thorne, Barry Barish and the LIGO Scientific Collaboration

June 16, 2017

Honoring the detection of gravitational waves, LIGO founder Rainer Weiss, Kip S. Thorne and Barry C. Barish and the LIGO Scientific Collaboration (LSC) have been bestowed with the 2017 Princess of Asturias Award for Technical and Scientific Research. About 10% of the LSC members are scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics (Albert Einstein Institute/AEI) in Potsdam and Hannover and from the Leibniz Universität Hannover. The AEI directors congratulate Rai Weiss, Barry Barish (member of the AEI’s Scientific Advisory Board) and Kip Thorne (a former member of the Board) on the prestigious award.

"This discovery is considered one of the most important scientific achievements of the century as it validates one of the pillars of modern physics –the General Theory of Relativity– while opening up a new window through which to observe the Universe," announced the Princess of Asturias Foundation in a press release.

The Princess of Asturias Award comprises a Joan Miró sculpture, representing and symbolizing the Award, a cash prize of 50,000 euros, a diploma and an insignia. The award will be presented in the autumn in Oviedo at a solemn ceremony presided over by the King and Queen of Spain.

Princess of Asturias Foundation

The Princess of Asturias Foundation is a non-profit private institution whose essential aims are to contribute to extolling and promoting those scientific, cultural and humanistic values that form part of the universal heritage of humanity and consolidate the existing links between the Principality of Asturias and the title traditionally held by the heirs to the Crown of Spain. 

Other Interesting Articles

Go to Editor View