Shane L. Larson, research associate professor at Northwestern University and astronomer at Adler Planetarium, will present his lecture, “Black Holes and Gravitational Waves: LIGO’s New View of the Cosmos,” on Friday, March 4, in Wishnick Auditorium on Illinois Tech’s Mies (Main) Campus. The event will include a public lecture from 12:45-1:45 p.m., with an introduction from College of Science Dean Russell Betts, followed by a technical seminar from 2-3 p.m. for those at the first or second year physics graduate level or above. Pizza will be provided during the lecture.
Larson will discuss the recent evidence of gravitational waves announced by physicists associated with the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) project. In September 2015, two L-shaped antennas used in the experiment detected a signal that resulted from a collision of two black holes more than a billion light-years from our spot in the universe. This discovery has the potential to confirm a part of Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity.
[Image credit: The SXS (Simulating eXtreme Spacetimes) Project]