Presents
The KITP Public Lecture Series
The Future of Gravity
sponsored by Friends of KITP
Gravity is an immediate fact of everyday experience, but
its fundamental understanding presents some of the
deepest theoretical and experimental challenges in
physics today. The modern approach to gravity as the
geometry of curved space and time is based on Einstein\'s
general theory of relativity. Einstein\'s theory stands on
some of the most accurately tested principles in science,
yet one of its most basic predictions --- gravitational
waves --- has never been detected on Earth. Gravitational
physics is concerned with some of the most exotic large
scale phenomena in the universe --- black holes, pulsars,
quasars, the final destiny of stars, the Big Bang, and the
universe itself. But gravitational physics is also concerned
with the microscopic quantum structure of space and time
and the unification of all forces. Gravity is thus important
on both the largest and smallest scales considered in
contemporary physics. This talk will give a broad brush
survey of the present state of our understanding of
gravity and the dramatic prospects for improvements in
that understanding from new experiments in the next
decade.
James Hartle has been a member of the UCSB physics
department since 1966. His scientific work is concerned
with the application of Einstein\'s relativistic theory of
gravity --- general relativity --- to realistic astrophysical
situations, especially cosmology. He has contributed to
the understanding of gravitational waves, relativistic stars,
and black holes. He is currently interested in the quantum
origin of the universe and the earliest moments of the big
bang when the subjects of quantum mechanics, quantum
gravity, and cosmology overlap. He is a member of the
US National Academy of Sciences, a fellow of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a former
Faculty Research Lecturer, and a past director of the
Institute for Theoretical Physics.