Wonderfest: Humanity's New Gravitational Sense

When I shake my first at the universe, however benignly, I make gravitational waves - vibrations of spacetime that travel throughout the universe at the speed of light. My personal gravitational waves are far too puny to detect. However, the spacetime waves of cataclysmic astronomical events (exploding stars, the merger of black holes, and the big bang itself) are relatively mighty. Modern gravitational wave detectors are giving us a new awareness - a new sense - of the cosmos.

Speaker: Dr. Rana Adhikari, California Institute of Technology