It took over a thousand physicists to build a telescope capable of detecting vibrations in space and time that come from the merger of two black holes. MIT's Rainer Weiss, one of the leaders of that team, and its inspiration and guide, spoke about their triumph in this year's John N. Bahcall lecture.

This program is part of the John N. Bahcall Lecture Series, which is organized and sponsored by the Space Telescope Science Institute and the Hubble Space Telescope Project/NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.