Writing for the American History Magazine, Sarah Richardson highlights the trailblazing path of Ellen Swallow Richards. Richardson notes that Swallow Richards was a “one-woman parade of firsts: first female student at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, first female fellow of the American Association of Mining and Metallurgy, first female professor at MIT.”
Mark Feeney writes for The Boston Globe about the exhibit “György Kepes Photographs: The MIT Years, 1946-1985,” which is on display at the MIT Museum through July 2018. This is the second show in a two-part series that celebrates the 50th anniversary of MIT’s Center for Advanced Visual Studies, which Kepes founded as an Institute professor.
“Spacewar!” – a video game developed by students in MIT’s Model Train Club on a mainframe computer in 1962 – is one of the finalists for this year’s World Video Game Hall of Fame. The game is "credited with helping launch the multibillion-dollar video game industry,” notes the Associated Press.
NBC Boston reporter Frank Holland visits MIT to discuss the Institute’s ties to slavery, which is the subject of a new undergraduate research course. “MIT and Slavery class is pushing us into a national conversation. A conversation that’s well underway in the rest of country regarding the role of slavery and institutions of higher learning,” said Dean Melissa Nobles.
Prof. Craig Steven Wilder and archivist Nora Murphy speak with Heather Goldstone of Living Lab Radio on WCAI about a new undergraduate course to research MIT’s historical ties to slavery. “The story of MIT also tells us about the centrality of slavery to the United States economy and to the rise of the United States as we know it,” says Wilder.
After being charged by MIT’s president to investigate the Institute’s ties to slavery, Prof. Craig Wilder led a new class that “uncovered myriad connections… some blatant and others nuanced,” reports Laura Krantz for The Boston Globe. SHASS Dean Melissa Nobles says it’s important to study MIT’s role in post-Civil War Reconstruction: “At the end of day, MIT is about ideas. It’s about better understanding human knowledge and advancing it. And one way we advance it is by understanding its origins.”
In an article for Times Higher Education, Anna Gast, president of Imperial College London, praises former MIT presidents, Vannevar Bush and Charles Vest, for their willingness to “advocate for the importance of fundamental research and the need for government support of it.”
WBUR’s Bruce Gellerman profiles Nobel laureate Prof. Emeritus Rainer Weiss, noting that his “stories of accomplishments and failure are legendary at MIT.” Prof. Peter Fisher, head of the Physics Department, says that Weiss, "is a tremendously intelligent man, but he’s got more perseverance, I think, than anyone else.”
Boston Globe reporter Eric Moskowitz spotlights the work of Prof. Emeritus Rainer Weiss, who was named one of the recipients of the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics for the “decades of determination” he invested in detecting gravitational waves. Moskowitz writes that Weiss is still, “as energized as ever by the thrill of scientific discovery.”
Prof. David Kaiser writes for The New York Times that the LIGO Scientific Collaboration’s successful detections of gravitational waves, for which Prof. Rainer Weiss was awarded a Nobel Prize, underscores the importance of basic scientific research. “By building machines of exquisite sensitivity and training cadres of smart, dedicated young scientists and engineers, we can test our fundamental understanding of nature to unprecedented accuracy.”
Forbes reporter Ethan Siegel writes about how Prof. Emeritus Rainer Weiss and two of his colleagues were awarded a Nobel Prize in Physics for their work detecting gravitational waves, “the culmination of theoretical and experimental work dating all the way back to Einstein.” Siegel adds that the detection of gravitational waves, “has transformed our idea of what's possible in astronomy.”
CBS Boston reports on Prof. Emeritus Rainer Weiss winning the Nobel Prize in Physics for his work detecting gravitational waves. “It’s quite awe-inspiring to think that somehow the three of us got mixed up with a prize that was won by the giants of this science,” said Weiss of his emotions upon winning the award. “It’s amazing.”
Guardian reporter Hannah Devlin writes that this year’s Nobel Prize in Physics has been awarded to Prof. Emeritus Rainer Weiss. Weiss said the successful detection of gravitational waves was the culmination of “40 years of people thinking about this, trying to make detections, sometimes failing … and then slowly but surely getting the technology together to be able do it.”
Prof. Emeritus Rainer Weiss has won the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work developing a device that detects gravitational waves, reports the AP. Weiss said that he views the prize as recognition for the entire LIGO team, and “more as a thing that recognizes the work of a thousand people."
Boston Globe reporters Sean Smyth, John Ellement and Eric Moskowitz report that Prof. Emeritus Rainer Weiss was honored with the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics. Weiss explained that LIGO has helped change, “the way you look at the way you fit into the universe. It makes you understand what’s going on all around us in the vastness of the universe.”