Dr. Clifford Will James S. McDonnell Professor of Physics Washington University
General Public Lecture
“Was Einstein Right?”
(abstract)
Wednesday, November 28, 2007 7:00pm in PSF 173
Department of Physics Colloquium
“The Confrontation Between General Relativity and Experiment”
(abstract)
Thursday, November 29, 2007 4:00pm in PSF 101
CLIFFORD MARTIN WILL is the James S. McDonnell Professor of Physics, and member of the McDonnell Center
for the Space Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis. Born in Hamilton, Canada in 1946, he received his pre-college and
college education there, obtaining a B.Sc. in Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics from McMaster University in 1968. In
1971, he obtained a Ph.D. in Physics from the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, and remained at Caltech for one year
as an Instructor in Physics. He was an Enrico Fermi Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Chicago from 1972 to 1974. In 1974 he
joined the faculty of Stanford University as an Assistant Professor of Physics, and remained there until 1981. From 1975 to 1979,
he was an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellow, and during 1978-79 a Mellon Foundation Junior Faculty Fellow. In 1981 he joined
Washington University in St. Louis as Associate Professor, in 1985 became Professor of Physics, from 1991 - 1996 and 1997 - 2002
served as Chairman, and in 2005 was named McDonnell Professor.
He has published over 160 scientific articles, including 13 major review articles, 26 popular or semi-popular articles, and two books,
Theory and Experiment in Gravitational Physics (Cambridge University Press, 1981; 2nd Edition, 1993), and Was Einstein Right?
(Basic Books, 1986; 2nd Edition, 1993). The latter book won the 1987 American Institute of Physics Science Writing Award, was
selected one of the 200 best books for 1986 by the New York Times Book Review, and has undergone translation into French,
German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish, Korean, Greek, Persian, and Chinese.
In 1986 he was selected by the American Association of Physics Teachers to be the 46th annual Richtmyer Lecturer. He was
elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society in 1989, and of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2002. He was
elected to the US National Academy of Sciences in 2007. In recognition of his theoretical work related to the Hulse-Taylor Binary
Pulsar, he was an invited guest of the Nobel Foundation at the 1993 Nobel Prize Ceremonies honoring discoverers J. Taylor and R.
Hulse. During the academic year 1996-97, he was awarded both a J. William Fulbright Fellowship and a John Simon Guggenheim
Fellowship for a sabbatical leave in Paris and Jerusalem. In 1996, he was named Distinguished Alumnus in the Sciences by McMaster
University. In 2004 he received the Fellows Award of the St. Louis Academy of Sciences. In 2005, in recognition of the World Year
of Physics, he carried out a 4-week, 21-city National Public Lecture Tour of Canada, sponsored by the Canadian Association of
Physicists.
His recent professional activities include: President of the International Society on General Relativity and Gravitation, 2004 to 2007,
and member of the Governing Committee from 1995 to 2004; Chair of the Science Advisory Committee for Gravity Probe-B (NASA)
from 1998; Divisional Associate Editor for Physical Review D from 1999 to 2001; member of the National Academy of Sciences
Committees on Gravitational Physics from 1997 to 1999, Physics of the Universe from 2000 to 2002; and Beyond Einstein Program
Assessment from 2006 to 2007; Chair of the APS Topical Group on Gravitation, in 2000.
His research interests are theoretical, encompassing the observational and astrophysical implications of Einstein’s general
theory of relativity, including gravitational radiation, black holes, cosmology, the physics of curved spacetime, and the theoretical
interpretation of experimental tests of general relativity.
General Public Lecture
“Was Einstein Right?”
Wednesday, November 28, 2007 7:00pm in PSF 173
Abstract: How has the most celebrated scientific theory of the 20th century held up under the
exacting scrutiny of planetary probes, radio telescopes,and atomic clocks? After 100 years, was Einstein right? In this lecture we
relate the story of testing relativity, from the 1919 measurements of the bending of light to the 1980s measurements of a decaying
double-neutron-star system that reveal the action of gravity waves, to a 2004 space experiment to test whether spacetime
“does the twist”. We will show how a revolution in astronomy and technology led to a renaissance of general
relativity in the 1960s, and to a systematic program to try to verify its predictions. We will also demonstrate how relativity plays
an important role in daily life.
Department of Physics Colloquium
“The Confrontation Between
General Relativity and Experiment”
Thursday, November 29, 2007 4:00pm in PSF 101
Abstract: We review the experimental evidence for Einstein’s general relativity. Tests of the Einstein
Equivalence Principle support the postulates of curved spacetime, while solar-system experiments strongly confirm weak-field
general relativity. We describe the status of the recently concluded Gravity Probe B experiment. Binary pulsars provide tests of
gravitational-wave damping and of strong-field general relativity. Recently operational laser interferometric gravitational-wave
observatories, and a future space interferometer, may provide new tests via the properties of gravitational waves.
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