The AIMS South Africa Public Lecture Series presents a talk titled:
“Gravitational Waves – Einstein’s Final Legacy and a Revolution for Astronomy”
By Prof. Bruce Bassett, AIMS South Africa, SAAO and UCT.
Abstract: Gravitational waves – ripples in the fabric of space and time itself caused by colliding black holes – were discovered last week by LIGO, opening up a new window on the Universe. In this talk we will explore what they are and why Einstein predicted them 100 years ago, how they are created and why it has been so hard to find them. We then discuss how gravitational waves will revolutionise astronomy by giving us a new sense, the only one that could potentially see right back to the Big Bang.
English