Colloquium
The Warped Side of our Universe: From the Big Bang to Black Holes and Gravitational Waves
Abstract
There is a "Warped side" of our universe, consisting of objects and phenomena that are made solely or largely from warped spacetime. Examples are black holes, singularities (inside black holes and in the big bang), and cosmic strings. Numerical-relativity simulations are revolutionizing our understanding of what could exist on our universe's Warped Side; and gravitational-wave observations (LIGO, VIRGO, LISA, ...) will reveal what phenomena actually do exist on the Warped Side, and how they behave.
About the talk
University of Caltech, USA
iCalendar &location=&trp=false&ctz=Atlantic/Canary' target='_blank' rel='nofollow' class='btn btn-primary btn-sm text-light' title='Export to Google Calendar'> Google Calendar
About the speaker
Born in Logan Utah in 1940, Kip Thorne received his B.S. degree from Caltech in 1962 and his Ph.D. from Princeton University in 1965. He returned to Caltech as an Associate professor in 1967 and became Professor of Theoretical Physics in 1970, The William R. Kenan, Jr., Professor in 1981, and The Feynman Professor of Theoretical Physics in 1991.
In June 2009 Thorne resigned his Feyman Professorship (becoming the Feynman Professor of Theoretical Physics, Emeritus) in order to ramp up a new career in writing, movies, and continued scientific research. His principal current writing project is a textbook on classical physics. His principal current movie project is Interstellar, a science fiction film for which Thorne co-authored the story and is executive producer, and Steven Spielberg is the Director. This movie is based on the Warped Side of the Universe - the topic of Thorne's lecture.
Kip Thorne's research has focused on Einstein's general theory of relativity and on astrophysics, with emphasis on relativistic stars, black holes and especially gravitational waves. He was cofounder (with R. Weiss and R.W.P. Drever) of the LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory) Project, with which he is still associated. He is a member of the LISA (Laser Interferometer Space Antenna) International Science Team. His current research passion is explorations of the Warped Side of the Universe.
Kip Thorne was selected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1972, the National Academy of Sciences in 1973, and the Russian Academy of Sciences and the American Philosophical Society in 1999. He has been awarded the Lilienfeld Prize of the American Physical Society, the Karl Schwarzschild Medal of the German Astronomical Society, the Albert Einstein Medal of the Albert Einstein Society in Berne, Switzerland, and the Common Wealth Award for Science, and was named California Scientist of the Year in 2004. For his book for nonscientists, Black Holes and Time Warps: Einstein's Outrageous Legacy (Norton Publishers 1994), Thorne was awarded the American Institute of Physics Science Writing Award, the Phi Beta Kappa Science Writing Award, and the (Russian) Priroda Readers' Choice Award. In 1973 Thorne coauthored the textbook Gravitation, from which most of the present generation of scientists have learned general relativity theory. Fifty-two physicists have received the PhD at Caltech under Thorne's personal mentorship.
Related talks
