20 Facts About Barry Barish

1.

Barry Barish is a Linde Professor of Physics, emeritus at California Institute of Technology and a leading expert on gravitational waves.

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2.

In 2017, Barry Barish was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics along with Rainer Weiss and Kip Thorne "for decisive contributions to the LIGO detector and the observation of gravitational waves".

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3.

Barry Barish was born in Omaha, Nebraska, the son of Lee and Harold Barry Barish.

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4.

Barry Barish attended John Marshall High School and other schools.

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5.

Barry Barish joined Caltech in 1963 as part of a new experimental effort in particle physics using frontier particle accelerators at the national laboratories.

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6.

In 1991, Barry Barish was named the Maxine and Ronald Linde Professor of Physics at Caltech.

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7.

Barry Barish became the principal investigator of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory in 1994 and director in 1997.

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8.

Barry Barish led the effort through the approval of funding by the NSF National Science Board in 1994, the construction and commissioning of the LIGO interferometers in Livingston, LA and Hanford, WA in 1997.

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9.

Barry Barish created the LIGO Scientific Collaboration, which now numbers more than 1000 collaborators worldwide to carry out the science.

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10.

The Advanced LIGO proposal was developed while Barry Barish was director, and he has continued to play a leading role in LIGO and Advanced LIGO.

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11.

From 2001 to 2002, Barish served as co-chair of the High Energy Physics Advisory Panel subpanel that developed a long-range plan for U S high energy physics.

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12.

Barry Barish has chaired the Commission of Particles and Fields and the U S Liaison committee to the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics .

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13.

From 2005 to 2013, Barry Barish was Director of the Global Design Effort for the International Linear Collider .

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14.

Barry Barish was honored by the University of Bologna and University of Florida where he received honorary doctorates.

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15.

Barry Barish was honored as a Titan of Physics in the On the Shoulders of Giants series at the 2016 World Science Festival.

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16.

In 2016, Barry Barish received the Enrico Fermi Prize "for his fundamental contributions to the formation of the LIGO and LIGO-Virgo scientific collaborations and for his role in addressing challenging technological and scientific aspects whose solution led to the first detection of gravitational waves".

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17.

Barry Barish was a recipient of the 2016 Smithsonian magazine's American Ingenuity Award in the Physical Science category.

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18.

Barry Barish was a recipient of the 2017 Princess of Asturias Award for his work on gravitational waves .

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19.

In 2018, Barry Barish was honored as the Alumnus of the year by the University of California, Berkeley.

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20.

Barry Barish has been elected to and held fellowship at the following organizations:.

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