Ronald Drever

British physicist (1931-2017)

Ronald William Prest Drever (October 1931 – 7 March 2017) was a Scottish experimental physicist. He was a Professor Emeritus at the California Institute of Technology. He co-founded the LIGO project, and was a co-inventor of the Pound–Drever–Hall technique for laser stabilization. This work was important in the first detection of gravitational waves in September 2015.[1][2][3][4][5][6]

Drever died on 7 March 2017 in Edinburgh, Scotland from complications of dementia, aged 85.[7]

References

change
  1. Knapton, Sarah (12 February 2016). "British scientist who played key role in gravitational waves research is suffering from dementia". The Telegraph. Telegraph Media Group Limited. Retrieved 12 February 2016.
  2. Twilley, Nicola. "Gravitational Waves Exist: The Inside Story of How Scientists Finally Found Them". The New Yorker. ISSN 0028-792X. Retrieved 2016-02-11.
  3. Abbott, B.P.; et al. (2016). "Observation of Gravitational Waves from a Binary Black Hole Merger". Phys. Rev. Lett. 116 (6): 061102. arXiv:1602.03837. Bibcode:2016PhRvL.116f1102A. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.116.061102. PMID 26918975. S2CID 124959784.
  4. Naeye, Robert (11 February 2016). "Gravitational Wave Detection Heralds New Era of Science". Sky and Telescope. Retrieved 11 February 2016.
  5. Castelvecchi, Davide; Witze, Alexandra (11 February 2016). "Einstein's gravitational waves found at last". Nature News. doi:10.1038/nature.2016.19361. S2CID 182916902. Retrieved 11 February 2016.
  6. Cho, Adrian (2016). "Will Nobel Prize overlook master builder of gravitational wave detectors?". Science. doi:10.1126/science.aah7350. ISSN 0036-8075.
  7. Gravitational waves pioneer Ronald Drever dies