Rainer Weiss Quotes

People think of waves as going in an orderly crash - whoosh - crash - whoosh, but in fact there are lots of different crashes and whooshes, all at different stages, and all going off at the same time.

If you throw a stone in a pond... the waves which strike against the shores are thrown back towards the spot where the stone struck; and on meeting other waves they never intercept each other's course... In a small pond one and the same stroke gives birth to many motions of advance and recoil.

Physics has found no straight lines. Instead, the physical universe consists of only waves undulating back and forth allowing for corrections and balance.

Waves from moving sources: Adagio. Andante. Allegro moderato.

As to the effect of the wave on the air, we will suppose the water to be quite flat and the air motionless, a heavy undulation comes on the scene, it has to pass, so it pushes the air up with its face, letting it fall again as its back glides onwards.

A long sea implies an uniform and steady motion of long and extensive waves; on the contrary, a short sea is when they run irregularly, broken, and interrupted; so as frequently to burst over a vessel's side or quarter.

Notwithstanding these major arguments the wave theory initially did not meet with complete acceptance.

When gravitational waves reach the earth, the waves stretch and squeeze space. This is a tiny stretch and squeeze. Far too small to detect with ordinary human senses.

If the wave is getting bigger, it causes the time to grow a little bit. If the wave is trying to contract, it reduces it a little bit. So, you can see this oscillation in time on the clock.

A gravitational wave is a very slight stretching in one dimension. If there's a gravitational wave traveling towards you, you get a stretch in the dimension that's perpendicular to the direction it's moving. And then perpendicular to that first stretch, you have a compression along the other dimension.

I said, suppose you take a light - I was thinking of just light bulbs because, in those days, lasers were not yet really there - and sent a light pulse between two masses. Then you do the same when there's a gravitational wave. Lo and behold, you see that the time it takes light to go from one mass to the other changes because of the wave.

The waves travel with the velocity of light and slightly squeeze and stretch space transverse to the direction of their motion. The first waves we measured came from the collision of two black holes each about 30 times the mass of our sun.

The wave is not the water. The water merely told us about the wave moving by.

All motion in this universe is in the form of waves, successively rising and falling.

A wave is never found alone, but is mingled with as many other waves as there are uneven places in the object where the said wave is produced.

Long on the wave reflected lustres of play.

Waves are the voices of tides. Tides are life.

A wave in the ocean is a wave, only in so far as it is bound by name and form.

The waves belong to the water. Does the water belong to the waves?

Sighing restlessly, the boundless sea broke huge rollers into white cream which hissed hungrily up to the tideline.

A series of vibrations. What does it matter, the source of the catalyst?

The sea, the sea, the sea. It rolled and rolled and called to me. Come in, it said, come in.

So fades a summer cloud away; So sinks the gale when storms are o'er; So gently shuts the eye of day; So dies a wave along the shore.

The universe is an asymmetrical entity. I am inclined to believe that life as it is manifested to us must be a function of the asymmetry of the universe or of the consequence of this fact. The universe is asymmetrical; for if one placed the entire set of bodies that compose the solar system, each moving in its own way, before a mirror, the image shown would not be superimposable on the reality.