March 10th, 2016 Lecture: The Mysterious “Gravitational Waves”

Publisher:吴婵Release time:2016-03-10Number of Views:424

When:18:30, March 10th (Thursday)


Where:J3-105 Jiulonghu Campus


Speaker: Guo Hao (Professor in Department of Physics, SEU)



About the Lecture:

Gravitational waves are ripples in the curvature of spacetime that propagate as waves. They are produced in certain gravitational interactions, and travel outward from the source. Predicted in 1916[by Albert Einstein on the basis of his theory of general relativity, gravitational waves transport energy as gravitational radiation. Gravitational waves do not exist in the Newtonian theory of gravitation; Newtonian theory assumes that gravitational interactions propagate at infinite speed.


Gravitational waves were observed for the first time on February 11, 2016, by the LIGO Scientific Collaboration and Virgo Collaboration teams using the Advanced LIGO detectors. The first signal detected originated from a pair of merging black holes. How are the gravitational waves discovered? How will this discovery help in understanding the universe? Professor Guo will tell the stories of gravitational waves.