Gravitational waves: this is how the universe sounds

Alicia Sintes in conversation with Juan Valiente Kroon

How does the universe sound? Could we look at our universe using new powerful ‘goggles’? How can we characterise disturbances in the fabric of space-time? The colloquium “Gravitational waves: this is how the universe sounds!” aims to solve these and other questions related to one of the greatest scientific discoveries of recent years.

On February 11, 2016, the scientific collaboration group LIGO and VIRGO announced the first observation of gravitational waves. The detection of these waves, which confirms the predictions of Albert Einstein in his General Theory of Relativity 100 years earlier, is one of the greatest scientific discoveries of recent years and it was rewarded in 2017 with the Nobel Prize for Physics, given to the three founders of the collaboration: Kip Thorne, Barry Barish and Rainer Weiss. Alicia Sintes, principal investigator of LIGO at the University of the Balearic Islands, is part of this team together with scientists from 18 countries.

Dr. Alicia M Sintes Olives is a Senior Lecturer in the area of Theoretical Physics at the University of the Balearic Islands (UIB). She obtained her PhD in Physics from the UIB, and has been a researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics in Germany and a scientific advisor to the European Space Agency (ESA).

Dr. Juan A. Valiente Kroon is a Professor of Applied Mathematics and Head of the Geometry and Analysis  Group at the Faculty of Mathematical Sciences at Queen Mary, University of London (QMUL).

Activity in collaboration with the Society of Spanish Researchers in the United Kingdom (SRUK/CERU) and the Office for Cultural and Scientific Affairs of the Embassy of Spain in the United Kingdom.

In English.