To celebrate the 10th anniversary of the first detection of gravitational waves, Missouri S&T’s physics department will host a public lecture about the topic and its connection to black holes.

The lecture will be held at 4 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 9, in Hasselmann Alumni House, located at 1100 N. Pine St. in Rolla. The event is free and open to the public.

Dr. Marco Cavaglia, head of S&T’s Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) group and professor of physics, will give a lecture titled “From Silence to Sound: 10 Years of Gravitational Waves from Colliding Black Holes.”

Cavaglia says that no prior knowledge of physics is needed to enjoy the event.

“Gravitational waves were predicted by Albert Einstein a century ago and were believed to be undetectable,” says Cavaglia. “And yet, the human ingenuity of thousands of researchers, engineers and technicians, and the vision of a few of the greatest scientists of our time, brought us a discovery that ‘shook the world’ and created a completely new branch of science to reveal the deepest secrets of the dark universe.”

At 4:50 a.m. Central Time on Sept. 14, 2015, the two detectors of the LIGO Laboratory at California Institute of Technology simultaneously observed a gravitational-wave signal that originated 1.3 billion light-years ago in a faraway galaxy. The source of the gravitational wave was a cataclysmic collision of two black holes releasing so much energy that it rippled the fabric of space and time across the entire universe.

“As we celebrate the tenth anniversary of one of the most important scientific achievements of this century, observations of gravitational waves from colliding black holes have become routine,” says Cavaglia. “In this talk, we will revisit the excitement surrounding the initial discovery, explore the science of gravitational waves and black holes, examine current results and discuss the expectations for gravitational-wave astrophysics over the next decade.”

About Missouri S&T

Missouri University of Science and Technology is a STEM-focused research university of over 7,000 students located in Rolla, Missouri. Part of the four-campus University of Missouri System, Missouri S&T offers over 100 degrees in 40 areas of study and is among the nation’s top public universities for salary impact, according to The Wall Street Journal. For more information about Missouri S&T, visit www.mst.edu.