SDF

Visionaries : Kip Thorne, Q&A with Yoo-Geun Song

The Warped Side of Our Universe :
Insights from Human Curiosity

Marking the 100th anniversary of Einstein’s theory of general relativity, renowned theoretical physicist Kip Thorne takes us on a fanciful voyage in a spacecraft, to explore the warped side of our universe: objects and phenomena made from warped space and warped time instead of from matter. The spacecraft carries humans through a hypothetical wormhole to the heart of a distant galaxy. There they encounter and explore a gigantic black hole: They probe the tornado-like whirl of space caused by the black hole's spin; they probe the black hole's horizon, from which nothing can escape, and the extreme slowing of time near the horizon. And they send probes into the black hole and watch as the black hole collides with a second black hole, creating a wild storm in the fabric of space and time. The storm generates ripples called gravitational waves that travel out through the universe and back to earth, carrying pictures that reveal to humans on earth deep mysteries of our universe's warped side. Through this intergalactic journey, the man who imagined wormholes shows and shares with us the power of science that has blossomed from human curiosity.