LIGO and Gravitational Waves, III: Nobel Lecture, December 8, 2017

The first observation of gravitational waves, by LIGO on September 14, 2015, was the culmination of a near half century effort by ∼1200 scientists and engineers of the LIGO/Virgo Collaboration. It was also the remarkable beginning of a whole new way to observe the universe: gravitational astronomy. The Nobel Prize for "decisive contributions" to this triumph was awarded to only three members of the Collaboration: Rainer Weiss, Barry Barish, and me. But, in fact, it is the entire collaboration that deserves the primary credit. For this reason, in accepting the Nobel Prize, I regard myself as an icon for the Collaboration.