Gravitational Waves Discovered

Without exception, Gravitational Wave discoveries are one of the most important developments in all of science. Predicted by Einstein in 1911, they were finally observed in 2016. This is part of my complete intro Astronomy class that I taught at Willam Paterson University and CUNY Hunter.

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Supplement the videos with "OpenStax Astronomy"
23: The Death of Stars

24: Black Holes and Curved Spacetime

The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO)

The Nobel Prize in Physics 2017

First observation of gravitational waves GW150914

LIGO Gallery

Hulse-Taylor binary

Simulating eXtreme Spacetimes (SXS) project

Most Precise Ruler Ever Constructed

Gravitational Wave form

Too Much on Gravitational Waves

Known black holes

Lovell Telescope

First-Known Double Pulsar Opens up New Astrophysics

Discovered! Neutron star collision seen for the first time

Kilonova

Neutron star merger animation ending with kilonova explosion

First observations of merging neutron stars mark a new era in astronomy

Doomed Neutron Stars Create Blast of Light and Gravitational Waves

Caltech-Led Teams Strike Cosmic Gold

Cosmic alchemy: Colliding neutron stars show us how the universe creates gold

The First Light with Hubble

The First Light with Spitzer

The First Light with Chandra

The First Light with the VLA

0:00 Introduction
1:00 September 14, 2015 - 1.3 billion years...
4:47 The Sound of Two Black Holes Colliding
6:10 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics
15:03 Nearly flat spacetime with a little bump
21:30 So how do things move as the wave passes by?
23:24 BUT, they do change distance!
26:15 Gravitational Wave Observatories
28:25 Wave Patterns of Gravitational Waves
34:08 The Most Precise Ruler Ever Constructed
36:46 Zooming into an Atom
38:12 Gravitational-Wave Observatories
48:29 Timing and Profile of the Signals
53:19 Spiraling Black Holes
55:05 Warped Spacetime Around Colliding Black Holes
59:53 Exaggerated Effects of Gravitational Waves

[butHomeisNowhere___]

Professor Kendall, I just have to thank you for posting these fantastic lectures. I listen to them all every few months, and they just never get old. I know I'm probably asking a lot, but I genuinely hope you do more of these in the future (although you've already covered just about everything worth covering, in my eyes, but I'm confident there have to be other things unbeknownst to me that I would find just as enthralling)

Again, thanks and I hope all is well.

[donaldsmith]

That animation of the tubes, and the whole video, was as good a description as I've encountered. Good work.

[EarlWallaceNYC]

Congratulations. You managed to communication the "essence" of GR and Differential Geometry in < 70 mins.

[elijaguy]

I have seen many videos about ligo-virgo, but the part beginning in 42:50 is new to me, jaw dropping.

Just to imagine Prof Weiss, planning as a student perhaps the most precise instrument possible nowadays, one which even Einstein said would be impossible to build, and actualizing his plan along 50 years of perseverance, is for me an amazing personal, human, scientific, story and achievement.

(and to think that Germany, the origin of so much great science, would send him to the gas chambers only because he was a Jewish child, is also a symbolic aspect of Western civilization, which I will never be able to grasp. )

[andrewrivera]

Yea, the most incredible part is 3 solar masses converted to gravitational waves! Agreed!

[LuciFeric]

Does this finding support quantum gravity theory? Thank you professor Kendall.

[homebrewhomebrew]

How could the explosion of 2 relatively small black holes be the most powerful event except for the big bang ?

[axelBr]

Binge watching your lectures, and in your slide "Nearly flat spacetime with a little bump", shouldn't the dr2 term be 1/ (1+ ...)? I think that's what you had in your Black Hole lecture.

[AvocaSingleTrack]

You hear chirps like that all the time on Ham radio.

[elijaguy]

warp and woof

The essential foundation or base of any structure or organization; from weaving, in which the warp — the threads that run lengthwise — and the woof — the threads that run across — make up the fabric: “The Constitution and the Declaration of Independence are the warp and woof of the American nation.”