Nicholas Begovich has been fascinated with Cal State Fullerton’s Center for Gravitational-Wave Physics and Astronomy ever since he visited it on a campus tour and heard about the center’s contributions to the first discovery of gravitational waves in 2016.
Since then, the retired engineering executive has frequently met with physicists Joshua Smith, Geoffrey Lovelace and others at the center, quizzing them on their experiments and theories and poring over books to learn more about how the massive collision of two black holes produces those waves, which are ripples in the fabric of space-time.
On Saturday evening, Feb. 29, in a ceremony on the campus quad, CSUF officials announced that the 98-year-old Begovich and his wife, Lee, 91, an art historian and former first-grade teacher, are donating $10 million to the center, which will be renamed the Nicholas and Lee Begovich Gravitational-Wave Physics and Astronomy Center.
Continue reading in The Orange County Register.