A Revolution in Astrophysics: The First 10 Years of Gravitational Waves
Dr. Larry Price
In this lecture, Dr. Larry Price will highlight, in accessible language, the significance of gravitational waves to scientific understanding of the natural world and the immense technological achievement that resulted in their detection.
Although Albert Einstein predicted t he existence of gravitational waves in 1916, they were not observed until 2015. The observation was made by an experiment Called LIGO (laser Interferometer Gravitational wave Observatory.) LIGO consisted of two major sites in the U.S, one of which is located in the Tri-Cities area of Washington state, just hours away from Sisters.Gravitational waves were a new way of observing the universe and a new tool for discovery from the start. With the first observation of gravitational waves, it was discovered that black holes could have masses in a range that had never before been observed.
Now, gravitational waves have been used to study Astrophysics for just over a decade and the more than 300 observed collisions include binary black holes, binary neutron stars, and black hole collisions with neutron stars. Most of these observations could not be made with any other technique. As additional gravitational wave observatories are planned deep underground and in space, hope is growing that many more phenomena may be observable. Additional observatories may even allow for viewing of the gravitational waves produced by the big bang itself.
Using a lively multimedia presentation, Dr. Price will help us understand the enormity of this scientific advance, which garnered the 2017 Nobel Prize in physics for LIGO’s lead researchers, and the rapid advances that have been made since then.
Dr. Larry Price is a physicist specializing in elementary particles. He holds degrees in Physics from Pomona College (BA) and Harvard University (MA and PhD). He is retired from a career at Columbia University and Argonne National Laboratory,. At Argonne, he held the rank of senior physicist and was Director of the High Energy Physics Division. He has served on multiple national and international committees for particle physics and related fields, including the High Energy Physics Advisory Panel, the U.S. Federal Advisory Committee for elementary particle physics. Dr. Price’s experimental work encompassed the properties of protons and neutrons, including their substructure, now understood as quarks; search for instability of protons; underground detection of atmospheric neutrinos and neutrino oscillations; and physics at multi-TeV colliders, including the discovery of the Higgs Boson.