The lecture was delivered in March 2011, by Nobel Laureate Kip Thorne, Feynman Professor of Theoretical Physics (emeritus) at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), United States. In his lecture, Thorne explores the curved structure of the universe, from the Big Bang to the mysteries of black holes and gravitational waves. He explains how general relativity predicts that mass and energy warp the fabric of space-time, producing observable effects in light, stellar motion, and detectable disturbances in the form of gravitational waves. Thorne also discusses recent discoveries involving the mergers of black holes and neutron stars, emphasizing how these signals allow us to “listen” to the cosmos rather than just observe it — and what this means for our understanding of a dynamic, expanding universe.
This lecture is part of the astrophysics series ‘The Science of the Cosmos, th
The lecture was delivered in March 2011, by Nobel Laureate Kip Thorne, Feynman Professor of Theoretical Physics (emeritus) at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), United States. In his lecture, Thorne explores the curved structure of the universe, from the Big Bang to the mysteries of black holes and gravitational waves. He explains how general relativity predicts that mass and energy warp the fabric of space-time, producing observable effects in light, stellar motion, and detectable disturbances in the form of gravitational waves. Thorne also discusses recent discoveries involving the mergers of black holes and neutron stars, emphasizing how these signals allow us to “listen” to the cosmos rather than just observe it — and what this means for our understanding of a dynamic, expanding universe.
This lecture is part of the astrophysics series ‘The Science of the Cosmos, the Science in the Cosmos’, tackles the fundamental questions in contemporary astrophysics.Why, at some point some 13 billion years ago, did a tiny, hot universe begin expanding in a Big Bang? The birth of the universe, as well as the formation of stars and planets, are explored in the first edition.
