college station california institute of technology physicist barry c barish former director of the laser interferometer gravitational-wave observatory (ligo) and creator of the ligo scientific collaboration (lsc) that includes more than 1 000 collaborators worldwide will visit texas a&m university next week to deliver a free public lecture detailing his role in the groundbreaking experiment recognized earlier this month with the prestigious $3 million special breakthrough prize in fundamental physics dr barry c barish barish will present einstein black holes and ligo on wednesday (may 18) at 6 pm in the second-floor primary lecture hall of the george p mitchell 40 physics building tickets are not required for the free event which is sponsored by the george p and cynthia woods mitchell institute for fundamental physics and astronomy and the department of physics and astronomy in conjunction with the may 17-20 us cms (compact muon solenoid) collaboration meeting both the meeting and the lecture are hosted by the texas a&m cms group which includes texas a&m high-energy physicists ricardo eusebi teruki kamon alexei safonov and keith ulmer two black holes collided one billion years ago recently resulting in the universes first observable gravitational waves 100 years after albert einstein first predicted their existence based on his theory of general relativity of space-time as one of the initial principal investigators for ligo barish led the collaborations efforts through the experiments final design stages funding approval and construction he continues to play a leadership role in ligo from the ongoing implementation of advanced ligo the experiments current phase that features 10 times the sensitivity and more than 1 000 times the detection potential to his service on the lsc executive committee kamon mitchell institute deputy director and event organizer says its fitting that barish will share his scientific journey with fellow ligo dream chasers within the very facility that another visionary george p mitchell 40 helped make a reality at texas a&m university barry barishs lecture offers the opportunity thanks in large part to mr mitchell and the mitchell family to learn from one of the worlds top authorities on ligo and many other pioneering international experiments that have revolutionized particle physics kamon said barish a national academy of sciences member since 2002 earned both his bachelor of arts in physics (1957) and phd in experimental particle physics (1962) at the university of california berkeley he came to caltech as a postdoc in 1963 where he has pursued his academic and research careers barish was named the maxine and ronald linde professor of physics at caltech in 1991 and since 2005 is the maxine and ronald linde professor of physics emeritus beyond ligo barish has performed other noteworthy experiments including high-energy neutrino collisions at fermilab that revealed the quark substructure of the nucleon these experiments were among the first to observe the weak neutral current a linchpin of the electroweak unification theories of glashow salam and weinberg following the neutrino experiment barish developed an ambitious international effort to open up a new field of particle astrophysics the experiment macro located in the gran sasso tunnel in italy produced the most sensitive search for the heavy magnetic monopoles that are predicted in grand unified theories macro also studied penetrating cosmic rays including neutrino measurements that provided important confirmatory evidence that neutrinos have mass and oscillate barish also is the former director of the global design effort for the international linear collider (ilc) barish is an elected member of the american academy of arts and sciences and is a fellow of both the american association for the advancement of science (aaas) and the american physical society (aps) he served as aps president in 2011 and on many important science committees including co-chairing the high energy physics advisory panel subpanel that developed a long-range plan for us high energy physics in 2001 he has also has chaired the commission of particles and fields and the us liaison committee to the international union of pure and applied physics (iupap) in addition to being very active in international collaboration for physics barish was given a presidential appointment and served on the national science board the 24-member board that oversees the national science foundation (nsf) and advises the president and the congress on policy issues related to science engineering and education # # # # # # # # # # about research at texas a&m university: as one of the worlds leading research institutions texas a&m is at the forefront in making significant contributions to scholarship and discovery including that of science and technology research conducted at texas a&m represented annual expenditures of more than $8666 million in fiscal year 2015 texas a&m ranked in the top 20 of the national science foundations higher education research and development survey (2014) based on expenditures of more than $854 million in fiscal year 2014 texas a&ms research creates new knowledge that provides basic fundamental and applied contributions resulting in many cases in economic benefits to the state nation and world to learn more visit http://researchtamuedu -atm- contact: shana k hutchins (979) 862-1237 or shutchins@sciencetamuedu or dr teruki kamon (979) 845-7740 or kamon@physicstamuedu the post caltech physicist to present public lecture on ligo experiment appeared first on college of science share: