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Robert H. Dicke established the “Gravity Group” in the Princeton Physics Department in the late 1950s. I joined the group as a first year graduate student in the 1968-69 academic year. Bob Dicke and his group played a major role in bringing the study of General Relativity (the relativistic version of the theory of gravity) into prominence in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. To commemorate Bob’s contribution, the American Physical Society designated the old Palmer Physical Laboratory, where Bob founded the group, as a Historic Physics Site and presented Princeton University with a Plaque to mark the site.

To celebrate, the Physics department invited the group members to return for afternoon talks by Jim Peebles and Rai Weiss on the early days of the gravity group, the unveiling and dedication of the plaque, and an evening public lecture by Kip Thorne. All three of the speakers were early members of the Gravity Group. Jim is still in Princeton. Kip went to Caltech (where I took a special relativity course from him as an undergraduate) and Rai went to MIT.

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