The Department of Physics and College of Mathematical and Natural Sciences held a dedication of the Weber Garden on Tuesday, March 12, 2019, which included remarks by colleagues and friends of Joe Weber and a colloquium by Nobel Laureate Rai Weiss: What Joe Weber started: Gravitational wave astronomy.
The garden, next to the main entrance of the Physical Sciences Complex, highlights the ultrapure aluminum gravity bars of UMD physicist Joseph Weber, a pioneer in the search for gravitational waves. Prof. Emeritus Charles W. Misner and his wife Susanne established the Weber Endowment for Gravitational Physics.
The 2016 announcement that the LIGO experiment had detected gravitational waves led to the Nobel Prize for Weiss, Kip Thorne and Barry Barish. UMD's key contributions in theoretical and experimental gravitational physics were discussed at a Nov. 1, 2016 symposium, A Celebration of Gravitational Waves.