Talk at Allegheny To Focus on Tool for Detecting Gravitational Waves

March 19, 2015 — Aidan Brooks, from the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) at the California Institute of Technology, will speak in Ford Chapel at Allegheny College at 8 p.m. on Thursday, March 26. The talk, “Gravitational Waves and Advanced LIGO in 2015,” is designed for a general audience.

This year is the centennial of Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity, which postulated the existence of gravitational waves (GW), ripples in space-time. These waves have never been directly observed and promise to yield a new branch of astrophysics upon detection.

A hundred years after the publication of the General Theory of Relativity, the Advanced LIGO gravitational wave detector is coming online, providing scientists with a tool to measure GW. Brooks’ talk will describe potential astrophysical sources of GW and review the design and current status of Advanced LIGO.

The presentation at Allegheny College is sponsored by the Barbara Lotze Endowed Lectureship and the American Physical Society.