Gravitational Waves

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss mysterious phenomena called Gravitational Waves in contemporary physics. The rather un-poetically named star SN 2006gy is roughly 150 times the size of our sun. Last week it went supernova, creating the brightest stellar explosion ever recorded. But among the vast swathes of dust, gas and visible matter ejected into space, perhaps the most significant consequences were invisible - emanating out from the star like the ripples from a pebble thrown into a pond. They are called Gravitational Waves, predicted by Einstein and much discussed since, their existence has never actually been proved but now scientists may be on the verge of measuring them directly. To do so would give us a whole new way of seeing the cosmos. But what are gravitational waves, why are scientists trying to measure them and, if they succeed, what would a gravitational picture of the universe look like?

→ Play on BBC Sounds website

Guests

• Jim Al-Khalili 8 episodes
  Professor of Physics at the University of Surrey
• Carolin Crawford 19 episodes
  Royal Society Research Fellow at the Institute of Astronomy, Cambridge
• Sheila Rowan 2 episodes
  Professor in Experimental Physics in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Glasgow

Related episodes

• The Death of Stars
  
  9 Jun, 2022 520 Astronomy
• The Graviton
  
  24 Nov, 2005 530 Physics
• Black Holes
  
  12 Apr, 2001 520 Astronomy
• Galaxies
  
  29 Jun, 2006 520 Astronomy
• Grand Unified Theory
  
  24 Feb, 2000 530 Physics
• Dark Energy
  
  17 Mar, 2005 520 Astronomy
• Quantum Gravity
  
  22 Feb, 2001 530 Physics
• Dark Matter
  
  12 Mar, 2015 520 Astronomy
• The Neutrino
  
  14 Apr, 2011 530 Physics
• Theories of Everything
  
  25 Mar, 2004 530 Physics
• The Life of Stars
  
  27 Mar, 2003 520 Astronomy
• Relativity
  
  6 Jun, 2013 530 Physics
• The Universe’s Shape
  
  7 Feb, 2002 520 Astronomy
• Higgs Boson
  
  18 Nov, 2004 530 Physics
• Cosmic Rays
  
  16 May, 2013 530 Physics
• The Photon
  
  12 Feb, 2015 530 Physics
• The Sun
  
  1 Jan, 2015 520 Astronomy
• The Planets
  
  27 May, 2004 520 Astronomy
• Albert Einstein
  
  14 Sep, 2023 500 Science
• The Vacuum of Space
  
  30 Apr, 2009 530 Physics

---

Programme ID: b007h8gv

Episode page: bbc.co.uk/programmes/b007h8gv

Auto-category: 530 (Physics and Astronomy)