The Department of Physics at The University of Texas at Austin is excited to host a free public science talk featuring 2017 Nobel Laureate Kip Thorne. Dr. Thorne will reminisce about the discovery of gravitational waves by LIGO and the fifty-year effort that led to this discovery. He will describe the way LIGO’s observations, together with numerical simulations, are transforming our understanding of black holes, and his vision for the future of gravitational wave astronomy.
He will also pay homage to Dr. Cécile DeWitt-Morette, the late UT professor emerita and world-renowned scientist who received international acclaim for her work in mathematical physics and for the European educational institution she established and led, L’Ecole de Physique des Houches. This institution helped launch many of the world's leading physicists and mathematicians, including Dr. Thorne, and played a key role in the foundations for LIGO and its breakthrough successes.