Two great discoveries of the 20th century were the warpage of space and time and the random, unpredictable behavior of atoms and molecules. Thorne will speculate about 21st century discoveries in the realms of space-time warpage and the quantum: Did warpage and the quantum together create the universe? Is there a rich "dark side of the universe," populated by objects such as black holes that are made of spacetime warpage? Can we observe the dark side of the universe and the universe\'s quantum birth using gravitational waves? Will 21st century technology reveal quantum behavior in the realm of human-sized objects?

Kip Thorne is the Feynman Professor of Theoretical Physics at Caltech and is co-founder of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory Project(LIGO). His research focuses on gravitation physics and astrophysics, with emphasis on black holes and gravitational waves.

Elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences, he has been awarded an honorary doctorate by Moscow State University, as well as honored with the Lilienfeld Prize of the American Physical Society, the Karl Schwarzschild Medal of the German Astronomical Society, the Phi Beta Kappa Science Writing Award and twice awarded the American Institute of Physics Science Writing Award in Physics and As tronomy. He has been a Woodrow Wilson Fellow, a Danforth Foundation Fellow, a Fulbright Fellow, and a Guggenheim Fellow.