Friday Headlines
the weekly newsletter from EHS
EHS to welcome Prof. Vecchio for lecture
18 September 2020
The EHS Academic Lecture Programme offers a broad range of thought-provoking talks from an eclectic mix of expert speakers and is an exciting opportunity to hear from some of the foremost thinkers in industry and business, science, the arts and the charity sector, and beyond. Our first lecture of the year will be taken by Professor Alberto Vecchio on Wednesday 23 September at 4.30pm.
Alberto is a leading astrophysicist, currently with the University of Birmingham. He will be giving a talk entitled: Gravitational Waves and Spacetime Fireworks: mapping collisions of black holes and neutron stars throughout the cosmos.
Gravitational waves were first detected in 2015, a hundred years since Einstein predicted this form of radiation. This discovery is considered a watershed event in fundamental physics and astronomy and was awarded the Nobel prize in 2017. Possibly more importantly, this first observation marks the beginning of a new era in astronomy and of explorations of some of the most violent phenomena in the cosmos. We have discovered binary black holes, which we by now we have realised are abundant in our Universe. We have observed for the first time the collision of a pair of neutron stars, which we now understand are the production site of gold, platinum and heavy elements in the cosmos. This is just the beginning of a new journey to unveil some of the best kept secrets of the Universe which is likely to provide many more surprises in the years to come, and Prof. Vecchio will be telling us all about it.
This is sure to be a fascinating talk, and we are very much looking forward to welcoming Prof. Vecchio next Wednesday. This will also be a first for EHS, as we are conducting the lecture entirely through Microsoft Teams.
