Gravitational Waves

What are they and why are they so important? What do they tell us about the universe?

With Dr. Luca MATONE, Astrophysicist, Member of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration that discovered gravitational waves, and Dr. Massimo ROBBERTO, AURA scientist, Space Telescope Science Institute

Presented by Crossroads Cultural Center

Last year physicists around the world celebrated the 100th anniversary of the theory of General Relativity. Without a doubt, the field equations that Albert Einstein presented to the Prussian Academy of Science in November 1915 would have gone down in history as a towering intellectual achievement even if they had been only partially successful in accounting for our observations of the universe. But what is truly amazing is that, in fact, such a "simple" and elegant model has since been proved to be consistent with all available astronomical and cosmological data. One cannot think of general relativity without being reminded of Eugene Wigner's famous comment: "The miracle of the appropriateness of the language of mathematics for the formulation of the laws of physics is a wonderful gift, which we neither understand nor deserve." Fittingly, the 100th anniversary of general relativity was also marked by a new occurrence of this "wonderful gift": in February 2015 the LIGO collaboration announced the first direct detection of gravitational waves, which until then had been by far the most elusive among the phenomena that Einstein had predicted. This long-sought confirmation of Einstein's most fundamental theory cannot but renew our wonder at the mysterious rationality of the universe, and at the same time at the mysterious power of the human mind to participate in this rationality and capture it in beautiful mathematical formulas. We are fortunate to have two distinguished scientists who have followed closely or even participated directly in the search for gravitational waves.

The event is free and open to the public.

About this Event

Date: Wednesday, September 21, 2016
Time: 7pm
Location: Crossroads Auditorium
125 Maiden Lane, 15th Floor, NY, NY
(ID required to enter the building)
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About the Speakers

Dr. Luca Matone
Astrophysicist, Member of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration that discovered gravitational waves

Massimo Robberto
Scientist at the Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, MD

Invitation

Download here.

Video

Intro and Part I
Part II
Part III
Part IV
Part V
Part VI
Part VII

Photos - click on image below