The next Sciama Memorial Lecture will take place on 13 December 2017 at 5 p.m. at SISSA's Aula Magna Paolo Budinich. The event will be a "Special SISSA Colloquium" to commemorate the great theoretical astrophysicist Dennis Sciama. This year the seminar, entitled "How the green light was given for the gravitational wave search", will be given by Pawel Nurowski from Center for Theoretical Physics, Warsaw.
Introducing the talk, Prof. Nurowski explains: "The recent observations of gravitational waves began almost a century after the first theoretical prediction of their existence by Einstein in 1916. For many years after that, there were serious doubts (shared by Einstein himself) about how the calculations had been made and whether or not these waves would really exist. Interest faded and the doubts persisted up to the time of Einstein's death. Finally, in the mid 1950s, this was taken up again by a number of people who solved the problems involved, restoring faith in the waves being real and giving a "Green Light" for experimentalists to start looking for them. This talk will present an account of the history and personalities involved". The Sciama Memorial Lecture will be aimed at a general audience. You are all invited. (Image by Nasa)