A NOBEL PRIZE winning scientist who fled Nazi Germany to the United States will be awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Almeria.
German-born Rainer Weiss won the Nobel prize in physics in 2017 for discovering gravitational waves, alongside physicists Barry Barish and Kip Thorne.
The waves – or, ripples in the fabric of space-time – are formed when two black holes fuse and stars explode.
Scientists say the discovery could hold the key to the origins of the Universe.
And it helped to validate one of the most important scientific breakthroughs of all time, Einstein’s 1915 Theory of General Relativity.
Weiss, now 85, was a boy when his Jewish Father and Christian mother decided to leave their home city of Berlin at the outbreak of the Second World War.
He gained his bachelor degree in New York and later his doctorate in 1962 from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a world-leader in scientific research.
The academic act will take place on June 4 and will be led by Antoni Fernandez Barbero, the director of the university’s international doctorate school. Weiss himself is expected to speak at the ceremony which starts at 1pm in the University’s main hall.
