What’s Up with Gravity? Weight, Weight! Don’t tell me!

For 250 years the concept of gravity was so simple: a young Isaac had shown that an apple falls from a tree for the same reason that the Moon orbits the Earth. Then, a young Albert replaced that simple idea with curved “space-time“. Since then, we have had to deal with E=mc^2, parallel universes, and black holes! Gravity plays an important role in the births and deaths of stars, the creation of elements, and even the production of sunlight. In this presentation to the general public, we will explore these ideas and talk about LIGO, a different kind of observatory here in Louisiana. LIGO has recently detected ripples in the spacetime continuum caused by collisions of massive stars in outer space, just as Einstein predicted.

Patrick Lestrade, retired professor of physics at Mississippi State University Department of Physics and Astronomy and former NOSHA board member, will be our speaker on this stimulating scientific topic!