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UID:0-1613@hmc.edu
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20251112T170000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20251112T180000
DTSTAMP:20251106T232040Z
URL:https://www.hmc.edu/calendar/events/nelson-series-doing-the-impossible
 -journeys-across-space-and-time-kip-thorne/
SUMMARY:Nelson Series: “Doing the Impossible: Journeys Across Space and T
 ime\,” Kip Thorne
DESCRIPTION:The 2025 Nelson Series explores innovation at the intersection 
 of STEM\, space and human possibility. Nobel Laureate Kip Thorne will reve
 al the decades-long effort to detect gravitational ripples in spacetime cr
 eated by colliding black holes\, exotic objects he helped bring to life in
  the movie Interstellar.\nKip Thorne\, Theoretical Physicist and Nobel Lau
 reate\n5 p.m. Community Reception &amp\; Book Sales - Galileo Foyer and pa
 tio\n6 p.m. Lecture followed by book signing - Galileo Hall\n“My Half-Ce
 ntury Quest\, with a Thousand Colleagues\, to Create Gravitational Wave As
 tronomy”\nThorne will present a series of vignettes that illuminate the 
 birth of gravitational-wave astronomy: from seminal ideas in the 1960s\; t
 hrough a horrendously difficult technology development program\, political
  battles\, human conflicts and $1.1 billion of taxpayer money\; to the fir
 st observation of gravitational waves by the Laser Interferometer Gravitat
 ional-Wave Observatory (LIGO) in 2015\; and onward to LIGO today observing
  several black hole collisions each week.\nBio\nThorne was born in 1940 in
  Logan\, Utah\, USA\, and is currently the Feynman Professor of Theoretica
 l Physics\, Emeritus at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). 
 From 1967 to 2009\, he led a Caltech research group working in relativisti
 c astrophysics and gravitational physics\, with emphasis on relativistic s
 tars\, black holes\, and especially gravitational waves. Fifty-three stude
 nts received their PhDs under his mentorship\, and he mentored roughly 60 
 postdoctoral students. He co-authored the textbooks Gravitation (1973\, wi
 th Charles Misner and John Archibald Wheeler) and Modern Classical Physics
  (2017\, with Roger Blandford)\, and was sole author of Black Holes and Ti
 me Warps: Einstein’s Outrageous Legacy.\n\nThorne cofounded (with Rainer
  Weiss and Ronald Drever) the LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wav
 e Observatory) Project. LIGO—in the hands of a younger generation of phy
 sicists—made the breakthrough discovery of gravitational waves arriving 
 at Earth from the distant universe on Sept. 14\, 2015. For his contributio
 ns to LIGO and to gravitational wave research\, Thorne shared the 2017 Nob
 el Prize in Physics\, and other major awards.\n\nIn 2009 Thorne stepped do
 wn from his Caltech professorship to ramp up a new career at the interface
  between art and science. This new career has included\, among other thing
 s\, a recent book The Warped Side of our Universe\, consisting of Thorne
 ’s poetry tightly integrated with paintings by Lia Halloran\; also Chris
 topher Nolan’s 2014 movie Interstellar (which sprang from a Treatment Th
 orne co-authored\, and for which he was executive producer and science adv
 isor)\, and Kip’s book The Science of Interstellar. Thorne is working wi
 th colleagues on a detailed history of LIGO.\nThe Nelson Series\nThe Bruce
  J. Nelson Distinguished Speaker Series is made possible through the gener
 osity of the family of Bruce J. Nelson ’74. Nelson was a brilliant techn
 ologist and leader\, who developed the remote procedure call protocol and 
 who\, at the time of his death\, was the chief science officer at Cisco Sy
 stems. The speaker series addresses global technical issues and their soci
 al\, economic and political challenges—a reflection of Harvey Mudd Colle
 ge’s vision of STEM for a Better World.
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.hmc.edu/calendar/wp-content/uploads/
 sites/39/2025/08/ThorneKip-by-Christopher-Michel.jpg
CATEGORIES:General Feed,TCCS Feed: Lecture
LOCATION:Galileo Hall\, 240 Platt Blvd.\, Claremont\, CA\, 91711\, United S
 tates
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