Joseph Weber. US physicist Joseph Weber (1919- 2000) working on a gravitational wave antenna. In the 1960s, Weber claimed to be the first to detect gravitational waves; ripples in space and time predicted by Einstein's theory of general relativity. Scientists today largely discredit his findings. Weber contributed towards building the maser (Microwave Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation), a laser that operates in the microwave frequency. In the 1980s he proposed using neutrinos for long distance communication, and built a simple neutrino detector based on sapphire and silicon crystals.