April 8, 2022 7-9PM

Event Type: Lecture and Stargazing
Title: Black Holes and Gravitational Waves: Was Einstein Right?
Lecturer: Saul Teukolsky
Position: Faculty
Institution: Caltech
Abstract:
The 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics went to the founders of the LIGO experiment for the detection of gravitational waves from a pair of orbiting black holes. This is one of the most exciting scientific discoveries of the past fifty years. What are gravitational waves and how were they detected? How have Caltech researchers used supercomputers to establish that the waves did in fact come from black holes? How does this experiment confirm that space and time are distorted by strong gravity, just as Einstein predicted? And what exciting discoveries might be just around the corner?