What the discovery of gravitational waves means | Allan Adams

More than a billion years ago, two black holes in a distant galaxy locked into a spiral, falling inexorably toward each other, and collided. "All that energy was pumped into the fabric of time and space itself," says theoretical physicist Allan Adams, "making the universe explode in roiling waves of gravity." About 25 years ago, a group of scientists built a giant laser detector called LIGO to search for these kinds of waves, which had been predicted but never observed. In this mind-bending talk, Adams breaks down what happened when, in September 2015, LIGO detected an unthinkably small anomaly, leading to one of the most exciting discoveries in the history of physics.

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[shwabzamen]

The crowd was so dead he made some good jokes :\

[pancke]

Unlucky Adam, looks like you had a tough room!

[mikestoneadfjgs]

i dont think the audience was unresponsive because they didnt care, they were probably having their minds blown, thus, not able to create sounds.

[richardzheng]

I've been a huge fan of Dr. Adams ever since I watched his lecture on QM in MIT. I watched literally all his videos on youtube.

[SangoProductions]

I guess they just don't understand the *gravity* of the situation.

[gdsm]

The crowd does not seem amused. The least they could do is give a wave, but I guess gravity was just too much to bear.

[sri_]

This guy teaches Quantum Mechanics at MIT....!!!!

[ricco]

seeing his passion and love for physics is so mesmerizing, if only people would value and honor such scientists the world wouldn't have been where it is right now.

[drained]

"When a kid talks about marhsmallows"
Crowd: WOAHHHH CLAP CLAP CLAP
"When someone talks about a miracle breakthrough of proving einsteins theory."
Crowd:....

[bandhanmadhu]

TED TALKS makes me positive from the heart. Such as:Makes it grow
Thinking, Stick up, Self-confidence, Values. I respect TED TALKS from my heart.

[srimansrini]

In this engaging talk, researcher Allan Adams explains about the story behind the discovery of gravitation waves and what it really means. A very useful for the students of physics & Astronomy. Highly recommended.

[sydneymorey]

When clever people get together anything is possible. It’s incredible stuff, so beautiful listening to the progress.

[flybennu]

I have had an intuitive understanding of black holes for a little while now. it is so strange, how the dimensions of the universe appear to us humans based on our physical order within the universe. they always make me think of what must exist in order for there to be something new. its so cool that people like me can be fed the basic information on such profound and detailed science and have their own understandings of it.

[piranha]

Did someone give tranquilizers to the audience?

They just seem awfully unresponsive!

[jaymeselliot]

Black holes colliding in a tenth of a second sounds like a drop of water falling in to a glass.

[NimbleBard]

We'd need the LIGO to detect the crowds reaction.

[winstonshinya]

We shouldn't blame the audiences, because most of them probably didn't know very well about physics.
Go to the mit opencourseware, watch the quantum physics taught by Allan Adams, you'll find the class is full of laugh and applause.
And according to my personal experience, applause isn't usually heard in classrooms.

[LP]

You guys should disable comments on all of your videos. It's literally a cesspool of ignorance from people who have no experience or knowledge of the video's topic. Great video, happy to be alive for this discovery.

[robertkerr]

in the interests of accuracy and completeness and because a bright and potentially influential person might see this powerful delivery and commit it to memory as a matter of course, it needs to be added that this theory of gravitational waves was at least as old as Albert Einstein and maybe even older. much gratitude to all TED contributors.

[zedooncadhz]

It takes all the gravity out of a statement when you over emphasise as much as he does