A physicist, Weber is credited with discovering the principle behind the operation of lasers and masers (essentially, microwave lasers), and was the first to speak of them in public — in 1952. But fame eluded him: the 1964 Nobel Prize for lasers went to three others.
Weber quickly realized lasers might be useful in proving Einstein’s theory of gravitational waves. Despite years of research, he was never able to detect a gravitational wave, but the most powerful laser experiment for that purpose is still currently being built. “He is regarded universally as the father of this field of gravitational wave detection,” said Dr. Kip Thorne, a professor of theoretical physics at Caltech. Weber died September 30 in Pittsburgh from non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. He was 81.
Update: Weber was right, and Dr. Thorne was there when the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory confirmed Einstein’s theory of gravitational waves.