Speaker
Patrick Sutton
Description
Gravitational waves -- ripples in the fabric of spacetime -
- were one of the first major predictions of Einstein's
General Theory of Relativity, and are the last to be
directly measured. These waves are produced by some
of the most violent phenomena in the universe, such as
collisions of black holes, the explosive deaths of massive
stars, and the big bang itself. Gravitational waves could
provide novel probes of matter and gravity under
extreme conditions, but they are so fantastically weak
that they have so far eluded direct observation. A
worldwide effort to detect gravitational waves has been
building over several decades, and is approaching
culmination with the upcoming operation of a new
generation of detectors that are expected to finally catch
these elusive signals. I will review the physics of
gravitational waves, experimental efforts to detect them,
and the scientific potential of this new window on the
universe.
