For those of you who live in or around Berkshire County, Massachusetts, or know people who do…
Starting next week I’ll be giving two free lectures about the LIGO experiment’s discovery of gravitational waves. The lectures will be at 1:30 pm on Mondays June 20 and 27, at Berkshire Community College in Pittsfield, MA. The first lecture will focus on why gravitational waves were expected by scientists, and the second will be on how gravitational waves were discovered, indirectly and then directly. No math or science background will be assumed. (These lectures will be similar in style to the ones I gave a couple of years ago concerning the Higgs boson discovery.)
Here’s a flyer with the details: http://berkshireolli.org/ProfessorMattStrasslerOLLILecturesFlyer.pdf
14 Responses
Yeah, a video would be nice please since I could not attend.
I attended the first of the two gravitational wave classes yesterday. Wow! Professor Strassler has a really wonderful way of explaining this difficult subject. Also, he spent a lot of time answering questions from the attendees, giving quite thoughtful answers.
Another vote for stream or podcast here! 🙂
Gravitational waves discover in Dec 2015 too. So two separate black hole events were recorded. This later one was just announced.
Three facts:
the LIGO team cannot determine as yet the astrophysical nature of the signal nor assess that it was produced by a binary Black-Hole merger leading to a newly formed Black Hole;
the LIGO team cannot determine as yet the true source of gravitation;
at almost the exact same time as LIGO’s signal was observed, the Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope observed a passing burst of gamma rays.
“… gravitational waves were discovered …”
Is this carved in stone now?
Which negligible term(s) were omitted to achieve this conclusion? (i.e. the beams were not normal to the gravitational field of the earth, there was a small arc that there transversed, yes/no?)
Layman’s question, as we try to observe and analyze smaller and smaller in scale, dimensions, we approach a vacuum filled nothing but “fields”. But even in a medium filled with fields, there are oscillations, the fields themselves, so doesn’t this implies that indeed there exist a point(s) where there is nothing there, “zero state”. And a zero state could be defined as the centroid of any curved dimension, i.e. a linear dimension is impossible (gravity).
PS; +2 for live streaming
Thanks for informing us, Professor.
I can imagine how exciting it will be to be present in MA.
I still remember your lecture in NYC Business Library, and I wish you were
back here as well.
The house was overcrowded.
Since then I became your “kid”.
I wonder why speed of light in vacuum and gravitational waves coincide ?
Could it be different ?
bob-2
Much misunderstanding exist about what the origin of gravitation is. May be the following short paper may help. http://www.e-physics.eu/MechanismsThatKeepRealityCoherent.pdf
I would also love a video, since I’m closer to Berkshire in the UK than the US …
Will these be made into podcasts for those us us far from MA? Best RegardsKevinCalifornia
From: Of Particular Significance To: kevinanorman@yahoo.com Sent: Tuesday, June 14, 2016 2:20 PM Subject: [New post] Giving two free lectures 6/20,27 about gravitational waves #yiv9156180056 a:hover {color:red;}#yiv9156180056 a {text-decoration:none;color:#0088cc;}#yiv9156180056 a.yiv9156180056primaryactionlink:link, #yiv9156180056 a.yiv9156180056primaryactionlink:visited {background-color:#2585B2;color:#fff;}#yiv9156180056 a.yiv9156180056primaryactionlink:hover, #yiv9156180056 a.yiv9156180056primaryactionlink:active {background-color:#11729E;color:#fff;}#yiv9156180056 WordPress.com | Matt Strassler posted: “For those of you who live in or around Berkshire County, Massachusetts, or know people who do…Starting next week I’ll be giving two free lectures about the LIGO experiment’s discovery of gravitational waves. The lectures will be at 1:30 pm on Mondays” | |
Concur with the above. Hopefully a podcast can be made available, and a link provided at this site.
+1 for recording or live streaming
Would it be possible to get these lectures recorded? I love your simple explanations of physics and these lectures will no doubt be appreciated by every curious mind to come across them.
If not I understand, I’m just sad I’ll have to miss them!
Any chance this could be recorded and made available to those of us who don’t live in the area?