What do gravitational waves sound like? - with Tessa Baker

In 2023 scientists detected the sound of gravitational waves for the first time. Find out more about gravitational waves and how they are detected, with cosmologist and astronomer Tessa Baker.

00:00 Intro
01:16 A brief history of astronomy
04:09 New gravitational wave detection 2023
05:00 Newton’s ideas about gravity
07:44 Einstein’s theory of relativity (demo)
12:39 Einstein’s prediction confirmed during an Eclipse
15:58 ‘The ghosts of stars’: black holes & neutron stars
19:42 How are gravitational waves created? (demo)
25:15 How are gravitational waves detected?
31:16 The first detection of gravitational waves
35:44 Gravitational waves as the sounds of spacetime
41:20 The first neutron star gravitational wave detection
48:04 A race between gravitational waves and light (demo)
54:29 How do gravitational waves relate to dark matter?
57:12 New gravitational wave detections about to start
58:43 An app to detect gravitational waves

This talk was recorded at the Ri on 19 May 2023.

Tessa Baker is a cosmologist and gravitational wave astronomer at Queen Mary University of London (QMUL). Her research centres on the laws of gravity and their role in shaping our universe. To put new ideas about gravity to the test, she works with experiments both on the ground and in space, such as the Vera C. Rubin Observatory, the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA gravitational wave detectors, and the LISA satellite mission. She is a Royal Society University Research Fellow and Reader at QMUL.

Baker completed her training at the University of Oxford. She spent periods living and working in Philadelphia, Boston, New York and Sydney before moving to start her research group at QMUL in 2019.

When not studying the cosmos, she likes to test gravity by hiking up significant things. She lives in south London with too many houseplants.

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[lent_ils]

I don’t know why the auditorium wasn’t packed to the brim… this lecture was BRILLIANT!! She’s brilliant. I loved all the media to support the presentation: simulations, data presented and the experiment, too! Thank you!

[DouwedeJong]

great talk, i can not wait for Tessa to come back and explain the recent announcement on gravitational background using pulsars.

[prasadrao]

Showing spacetime as a cube really helps in visualization of spacetime.

[Zeitgeist-qglu]

Inspiring. Dr. Baker has the rare quality of being able to communicate high-level physics concepts with clarity, enthusiasm and intelligence that make concepts accessible to a lay audience. In addition, her demos and high level of energy invite us to collectively experience some of the awe of the universe. Thank you Dr. Baker.

[Danny-hbzb]

Brilliant presentation as usual. Never disappoints this channel it’s the best sub I ever did 👏🏻

[radiumbreon]

I was at this talk! I really loved being there!

[Aluminata]

Empty space turns out to be like a very large block of jelly, endlessly vibrating, and rippling with the unimaginable forces of gravitational generation events.

[muzikhed]

Really good explanation and the demos were great too, the cube grafic warping space time brilliant as was the electric drill creating gravitational waves and the strobe light detecting the waves themselves.

[tessabaker]

Hi folks, thanks very much for watching, and well done to those who spotted the small snafu around 53:30. Indeed, the speed of gravity computed here should be faster than that of light by a tiny amount, so it’s about

No need to get excited about faster-than-light travel here, though — as I mentioned, that tiny difference can be explained by the limitations of our calculation.

Please rest assured that this snafu appeared only in this talk :)

[umdiqmp]

what an ingenious way of demonstrating gravitational waves!

[bazsnell]

Brilliant lecture and well presented for the amateur layman.

[chiragshah]

A remarkable presentation! Very interesting and the presenter made it so easy to grasp the concepts.

[ivan-Croatian]

She's so pasionate! I wish I had at least one teacher like her 😔

[gustavomoretto]

Absolutely brilliant presentation. I'm an astronomy buff and for the first time finally understood space/time as a dynamic element of the universe coupled with understanding how gravity waves can occur. Also, this is the first time I fell in love with an astronomer...

[kagannasuhbeyoglu]

It seems we have a long way to go. Our understanding of the universe is changing as data comes from James Webb and Gravitational Wave Observatories.
Thanks a lot TheRi and Ms. Baker

[OpenWorldRichard]

What an excellent presentation. It was so clear with the information and I loved the demos. The observation of the neutron star merger using gravitational waves and light was particularly significant for particle physicists. At a distance of 130 million light years the merger event had a recession velocity of around one hundredth of the speed of light due to the expansion of space. We know that gravitational waves propagate as a wave disturbance of the medium of space. Therefore light must also travel as a wave disturbance of that medium. This contradicts the standard model of particle physics view of light as a wave in a quantum field which is independent of space. Furthermore, the observed nature of light as a wave in a medium from this experiment means that the postulates of Special Relativity must be wrong. Richard

[gstlynx]

One of the finest presentations on any subject I have ever seen! Thanks to everyone involved.

[terencechipchase]

That drill/wheel/strobe light assembly demonstration was absolutely inspired. More so because you already had established the idea of the rubber sheet as being spacetime so it was a brilliant visualisation. Props to whoever thought of that. Great lecture; Thank you. PS seen the rubber sheet with masses on so many times but alway's thought "Yeah, but it happens in three dimensions. Along comes the 3D graphic. Smashing

[sandeepmaharshi]

Such a beautiful presentation... I wish, i had a teacher like her in my school time.

[cjbailey]

I had no idea we could hear gravitational waves! Thanks for the education. Awesome presentation.