Alessandra Buonanno - Einstein Was Right

1. VII
2. DIANA KORMOS BUCHWALD
3. TILMAN SAUER
4. BARRY C. BARISH
5. KIP S. THORNE
6. ALESSANDRA BUONANNO
7. DANIEL KENNEFICK
8. JRGEN RENN
9. HARRY COLLINS
10. DIANA KORMOS BUCHWALD
11. DON HOWARD

DIANA KORMOS BUCHWALD

The GR100 conference in Pasadena, California celebrating the centenary of the general theory of relativity and Albert Einsteins first paper on gravitational waves was many years in the making. The hope that gravitational waves would actually be directly detected by the year 2016 had been on our minds at least since the early 2000s, when the Einstein Papers Project, in collaboration with colleagues across the Institute, envisaged convening two large events separated by more than a decade that would bring together not only historians of science but also physicists, astronomers, and engineers working in relativistic fields to commemorate Einsteins 1905 annus mirabilis as well as his 19151916 papers on general relativity. But the post9/11 restrictions on travel that prevented foreign scholars from easily attending US conferences meant that such larger gatherings would be international only in name. We therefore designed a series of individual lectures for 20042005 and proceeded to eagerly await news of gravitational waves over the next decade.

In April 2014, Kip Thorne, by then officially retired from Caltech, wrote Barry Barish:

Dear Barry

You may recall that a few months ago we talked about the possibility of an Einstein/general relativity celebratory event at Caltech. Diana Kormos-Buchwald has raised this issue with me again; see the attached email. If something were done in the 2016 time frame, it might coincide with the discovery of gravitational waves, or with putting improved limits on them. 1916 was Einsteins classic paper on gravitational waves. Thus, the natural connection to LIGO.

Thanks and best wishes,

Kip

That same day, Barish replied:

Kip / Diana,

Yes, I recall our earlier discussion and am enthusiastic about having this Einstein event at Caltech. I would be happy to step into your big shoes, Kip, and work with Diana to organize physics participation in the program, organization, etc.

If you agree, Diana and I can then arrange to get together, and then I will follow-up with Tom Soifer, Dave Reitze and others.

Barry

I visited Barish shortly afterward in his small office in West Bridge. Quiet chatter among those close to the inner circles of LIGO cognoscenti was by then indicating that good news was expected in the near future. But he was neither willing nor unwilling to declare by when gravitational waves would definitively be confirmed, though he seemed to suggest that the last week of Caltechs winter term 20152016, meaning mid-March 2016, would be a good bet. Barish accordingly held preliminary meetings with Caltechs Physics, Mathematics, and Astronomy Division (PMA) leadership. In September 2014, we followed up with Hirosi Ooguri, vice-chair of the Division. By October 2014, Jrgen Renn, expert in the history of general relativity, was selected by the Division of the Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS) as the recipient of the biannual Bacon Award in the History of Science.

From October 2014 to March 2016, the main organizers and a large number of colleagues exchanged more than 1,400 emails to bring the event celebrating the centenary of Einsteins gravitational-waves paper to fruition. Well-attended lectures were held both at the Huntington and at Caltech over a period of three days, despite occasionally heavy rain.

General Relativity at One Hundred: The Sixth Biennial Bacon Conference, 1012 March 2016, Pasadena, CA, was co-sponsored by the Bacon Foundation, the Walter Burke Institute for Theoretical Physics and the Divisions of the Humanities and Social Sciences and Physics, Mathematics and Astronomy at Caltech, and by the Research Department of the Huntington.

An exhibition documenting how Einstein formulated his theory of general relativity was on view during the month preceding the GR100 conference. The opening lecture on February 16 was delivered by Professor Hanoch Gutfreund, former president and chair of Theoretical Physics at the Hebrew University. The exhibition comprised facsimiles of selected highlights of Einsteins manuscripts from the years 1907 to 1916, calculations, letters to colleagues, photographs, and books, all materials housed at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

FIGURE 0.1. Poster for the GR100 Conference, March 1012, 2016.

FIGURE 0.2. Poster of manuscripts and books exhibition preceding conference.

The conference also commemorated Albert Einsteins connections to Caltech, where he spent three academic terms as a visiting scientist during the years 1931 to 1933, the only US university at which Einstein held an appointment (albeit a temporary one). His links to the Institute reached back to 1913, when he famously inquired of George Ellery Hale whether the bending of light in the vicinity of the Sun could be observed during daytime.