Black Holes and Gravitational Waves: Was Einstein Right?

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Within “Wits 100”, the School of Physics invites you to a talk by Wits Physics Alumni Prof. Saul Teukolsky, recipient of the prestigious Dirac Medal 2021.

Foreword by Wits VC, Prof. Zeblon Vilakazi.

Speaker: Prof Saul Teukolsky

Active at: Cornell University and Caltech

Title: Black Holes and Gravitational Waves: Was Einstein Right?

Abstract

The 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded for the detection of gravitational waves from a pair of orbiting black holes. This is one of the most exciting scientific discoveries of the past fifty years. What are gravitational waves and how were they detected? How have researchers used supercomputers to establish that the waves did in fact come from black holes? How does this experiment confirm that space and time are distorted by strong gravity, just as Einstein predicted? And what exciting discoveries might be just around the corner?

When: Thursday 26th May, at 18h00

Where: ONLINE (MS teams) FOLLOW THIS LINK