Michael Shermer with Dr. Janna Levin — Black Hole Blues (Science Salon # 5)

Listen to the Podcast (audio) version:

On Thursday, February 11, 2016, the National Science Foundation made a thrilling announcement: gravitational waves—first predicted by Einstein as part of his general theory of relativity in 1916—had been detected for the first time. This incredible development made front page news and was reported by outlets across the country. How was such a remarkable discovery, a long hundred years after Einstein’s prediction, made possible?

In this Science Salon based on her new book, Black Hole Blues and Other Songs from Outer Space, astrophysicist and award-winning writer Dr. Janna Levin tells the epic story of the scientific campaign to record these waves—the holy grail of modern cosmology. A handful of physicists, led by Kip Thorne and Ronald Drever at Caltech and Rainer Weiss at MIT, have been working nearly their entire careers to conceive of, design, and build an instrument sensitive enough to detect gravitational waves. Levin delves into the lives and fates of the scientists, painting compelling portraits of these very human visionaries. She journeys from Los Angeles to Boston, to the LIGO interferometers in Hanford, Washington and Livingston, Louisiana, to the labs, offices, and observatories where the work in this great quest has painstakingly unfolded over the past five decades. Her account of the personalities, surprises, setbacks, and successes is a compelling and intimate portrait of the people and processes of modern science.

Order the book from Amazon:

This event was recorded on April 10, 2016 at Science Salon, hosted by The Skeptics Society, in California.

- - -

Listen to Science Salon via iTunes, Spotify, Google Play Music, Stitcher, iHeartRadio, TuneIn, and Soundcloud

Watch past Science Salon videos

Learn more about Science Salon:

Learn more about Skeptic

- - -

BECOME A PATRON

You play a vital part in our commitment to promote science and reason. Your ongoing patronage will help ensure that sound scientific viewpoints are heard around the world.

#sciencesalon

[MzeeMoja]

I’d love to be in Janna’s class as her student. She reminds me of lecturers that get you attached to a field of study in a really studious and interested way, constantly inspiring. I believe this is exactly what Janna was placed here to do and it’s great to share this universe with people like her.

[jeanqnguyen]

wow shes amazing, my intuition is bending left & right .I have to rethink everything

[WaySafe]

I recall a saying that realization comes two years too late. :(
it is 3/11/18 today, thank you for being here Dr. . Your conversation is clear .

[jebuskryst]

I have enjoyed all these, but this one is the best one so far.

[torstrasburg]

I love cosmology. I love it even more now.

[clearbrain]

very good INTERACTION...thanks a ton..really appreciated

[kibrickj]

Really impressive physicist. Thrilled our society has the capacity to have great individuals look into these fundamental questions. Makes me wish I could go back in time :) and explore more with professionals like this. Funny how such a low key, great mind can potentially have a much, much larger effect on society/humanity in the long run than any CEO IMHO.

[babalaksa]

Among working physicists, Janna Levin is one of the best science communicators out there, on par with the likes of Sean Carroll.

[savapavlovic]

Not a bad book.Perfect for people interested in Astronomy.

[kevinharris]

As a theist, I really appreciate what she says about "God of the gaps" (45:35). Theists don't have to (and should not) argue from gaps. We can argue for God based on what we KNOW, not on what we don't know. The Fine Tuning of the constants that have been discovered and affirmed have philosophical ramifications that is good evidence for theism.

[lewisradcliff]

Dr. Janna, the bold new face of brains and beauty that illuminates the intellect with thought provoking soft large brown eyes. First among equalls, you are a super nova of magnificent mentality.

[HarryNicNicholas]

the LHC did create black holes, but as janna said they were so small they "lived" for tiny fractions of a second. having already travelled in time and watched videos of jannas from 2019 (!) we now know that gravitational waves do warp space / time and colliding black holes made the noise. time travel is wonderful. how big are those mirrors, the hand gestures imply they are big, but surely they only need to be, well less than inches or millimeters given they measure lasers? at 54:10 talking about turing and being machines, and the soul, the "joyous" experience is a combination of things, learning from our parents how to "be happy", the program in our brain that "feels" happiness and chemicals released, so, surely this could be duplicated in AI. brian greene says that it's not so much AI we should worry about, but whoever is in second place for the race to create AI, they could be really pissed. and what does it matter (!) if AI do succeed us, we are all going to die and pass things on to our children, or other people's children, and AI will only be another form of human, so what matters it if future humans are machines rather than biology?

[coolal]

WOW! I never knew Mariah Carey was so smart.

[machkauchizmama]

1:26:10 how can andromeda be thousand times bigger than milky way?

[venkateshbabu]

Dimensionality and other sense work only within a specific constraints. Defining dimensions is a rough idea how is visualizations perceived

[Widkey]

Depends on how one defines 'free will'.. if it's you weigh logic in your decision, but you are also influenced by varying degrees of emotion.. then I think we have some free will, but probably less than we think.

[venkateshbabu]

There are different types of black holes that is difficult to explain. Dark matter is an other difficult kinds of matter which are supposed to start with a spectrum of microwave radiation range and extend beyond. Black holes are just the beginning.

[geoden]

I checked into space expansion the other day and was surprised to find that it expands at 16 million miles per day, which is more than thought. The expansion rate is increasing so it's maybe not surprising after all. So come on alien fans, they are getting away rapidly! What are you going to do?

[thomasfleig]

Our universe is actually the result of a super massive black hole reaching its limit of mass. Once it grew big enough, it finally exploded like a balloon that is overfilled with air or water. Since the extreme gravity breaks all the heavy elements back into the simplest form, which is protons and electrons, the new universe started back out with hydrogen.

[venkateshbabu]

The dimensionality changes as we go further into numbers or space. like one is a container every other containers. 2×2 or 4 is a container of one two and three with a spacial surface dimension of two. so light has seven colors which means it can exist only in a spacial dimension of 2×2×2 or two cube which is the minimum even number of two. And a three dimensional object. But light exist in higher dimensions in a different form.