Ronald Drever Explained

Ron Drever
Birth Name:	Ronald William Prest Drever
Birth Date:	26 October 1931^[1]
Birth Place:	Bishopton, Renfrewshire, Scotland, UK
Death Place:	Edinburgh, Scotland, UK
Fields:	Physics, Laser physics, Experimental Gravitation
Workplaces:	California Institute of Technology, University of Glasgow
Alma Mater:	University of Glasgow (PhD)
Thesis Title:	Studies of orbital electron capture using proportional counters
Thesis Url:	http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/298416389
Thesis Year:	1959
Doctoral Students:	James Hough
Known For:	Laser stabilizing technique Pioneering laser interferometric gravitational wave observation.

Ronald William Prest Drever (26 October 1931 – 7 March 2017) was a Scottish experimental physicist. He was a professor emeritus at the California Institute of Technology, co-founded the LIGO project, and was a co-inventor of the Pound–Drever–Hall technique for laser stabilisation, as well as the Hughes–Drever experiment. This work was instrumental in the first detection of gravitational waves in September 2015.^{[2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7]}

Drever died on 7 March 2017, aged 85,^[8] seven months before his colleagues Rainer Weiss, Kip Thorne, and Barry Barish won the Nobel Prize in Physics for their work on the observation of gravitational waves.^[9] The trio of Drever, Thorne and Weiss shared several major physics prizes in 2016, so it is widely believed that Drever would have won the Nobel Prize in the place of Barry Barish had he not died before the Nobel Committee made their decision.^{[10] [11]}

Education

Drever was educated at Glasgow Academy followed by University of Glasgow where he was awarded a bachelor's degree in 1953^[12] followed by a PhD in 1959 for research on orbital electron capture using proportional counters.^[13]

Career and research

After receiving his PhD from the University of Glasgow in 1959, Drever initiated the Glasgow project to detect gravitational waves in the sixties,^[14] after which he established the University’s first dedicated gravitational wave research group in 1970.^[15] The same year Drever was recruited to form a gravitational wave program at Caltech.^[16] In 1984 Drever left Glasgow to work full-time at Caltech.^[17]

Drever's contributions to the design and implementation of the LIGO interferometers were critically important to their ability to function in the extreme sensitivity realm required for detection of gravitational waves (10⁻²³ strain).

Drever's final work involved the development of magnetically levitated optical tables for seismic isolation of experimental apparatus.^[18]

Honors and awards

Drever was recognized by numerous awards including:

• Fellowship of the American Physical Society (1998)^[19]
• Inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences ^[20] (2002)
• Shared the Einstein Prize (2007) with Rainer Weiss
• The Special Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics (2016)
• The Gruber Prize in Cosmology (2016)
• The Shaw Prize (2016) (together with Kip Thorne and Rainer Weiss).^[21]
• The Kavli Prize in Astrophysics (2016).^[22]
• Smithsonian, American Ingenuity Award (2016)
• The Harvey Prize (2016)
• Fellowship of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters^[23]

Artistic inspiration

Robert Crawford wrote a meditation on the life of Ronald Drever.^[24]

Further reading

• Marcia Bartusiak, Einstein's Unfinished Symphony (Joseph Henry Press, Washington D.C., 2000) - Contains coverage of his work with gravity wave detectors, including LIGO

Notes and References

1. Web site: Caltech Mourns the Passing of LIGO Co-founder Ronald W. P. Drever. 8 March 2017. 10 March 2017. Caltech. Whitney Clavin.
2. News: British scientist who played key role in gravitational waves research is suffering from dementia . Telegraph Media Group Limited . The Telegraph . 12 February 2016 . 12 February 2016 . Knapton, Sarah.
3. News: Gravitational Waves Exist: The Inside Story of How Scientists Finally Found Them. The New Yorker. 2016-02-11. 0028-792X. Nicola. Twilley.
4. Abbott, B.P. . Observation of Gravitational Waves from a Binary Black Hole Merger . . 116 . 6 . 061102 . 2016 . 10.1103/PhysRevLett.116.061102 . etal. 1602.03837 . 2016PhRvL.116f1102A . 26918975. 124959784 .
5. News: Naeye . Robert . Gravitational Wave Detection Heralds New Era of Science . Sky and Telescope . 11 February 2016 . 11 February 2016 .
6. Einstein's gravitational waves found at last . Nature News. 11 February 2016 . Castelvecchi . Davide . Witze . Alexandra . 10.1038/nature.2016.19361 . 182916902. 11 February 2016 .
7. Cho. Adrian. Will Nobel Prize overlook master builder of gravitational wave detectors?. Science. 2016. 0036-8075. 10.1126/science.aah7350.
8. Web site: Gravitational waves pioneer Ronald Drever dies. BBC. Jonathan Amos. 8 March 2017. 10 March 2017.
9. Web site: Nobel Prize in Physics 2017 press release. nobelprize.org.
10. 2018-10-26. Ronald Drever. Physics Today. EN. 10.1063/PT.6.6.20181026a. 239972691 .
11. Web site: Scottish scientist was tipped to join Nobel prize winners. www.scotsman.com. en. 2019-11-26.
12. Web site: The University of Glasgow Story: Ronald Drever. https://web.archive.org/web/20161205233911/http://www.universitystory.gla.ac.uk/biography/?id=WH26945&type=P. 2016-12-05. universitystory.gla.ac.uk. University of Glasgow. Glasgow. Anon. 2016.
13. PhD . Ronald William Prest . Drever . Studies of orbital electron capture using proportional counters . University of Glasgow . 1959 . 298416389 .
14. Web site: Gravitational Waves Detected, Confirming Einstein's Theory . The Herald Scotland. The Herald Scotland . 23 August 2002 . 28 December 2017 . Prof R G Moorhouse.
15. Web site: £500K BEQUEST MAKES SPLASH WITH GLASGOW GRAVITATIONAL WAVE SCIENTISTS . University of Glasgow. gla.ac.uk . 28 December 2017 . 28 December 2017 .
16. Web site: Gravitational Waves Detected, Confirming Einstein's Theory . New York Times . 11 February 2016 . 12 February 2016 . OVERBYE, DENNIS, CORUM, JONATHAN and DRAKEFORD, JASON.
17. Web site: £500K BEQUEST MAKES SPLASH WITH GLASGOW GRAVITATIONAL WAVE SCIENTISTS . University of Glasgow. gla.ac.uk . 28 December 2017 . 28 December 2017 . Prof R G Moorhouse.
18. Web site: Measurements of Mechanical Q in Levitated Paramagnetic Crystals . Caltech. Amaldi Conference 2000 . 2000 . S. J. Augst . R. W. P. Drever . amp .
19. News: APS fellow archive . American Physical Society.
20. http://media.caltech.edu/press_releases/12285 Five Caltech Faculty Members Elected to Membership in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
21. Web site: Shaw Prize 2016 . 2016-05-31 . 2018-03-03 . https://web.archive.org/web/20180303094456/http://www.shawprize.org/en/shaw.php?tmp=3&twoid=102&threeid=254&fourid=476 . dead .
22. Web site: 2016 Kavli Prize in Astrophysics www.kavliprize.org. www.kavliprize.org. 2 June 2016. 2016-06-02.
23. Web site: Group 2: Astronomy, Physics and Geophysics. Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters. 22 December 2017. https://web.archive.org/web/20171222162631/http://english.dnva.no/c40134/artikkel/vis.html?tid=40149. 22 December 2017. dead.
24. Web site: Drever, Ligo . BBC . 22 October 2018 . en.