Bringing Astrophysics to Life Through Art with Kip Thorne and Lia Halloran (#397)

Into the Impossible With Brian Keating

Brian Keating

Science, Physics, Natural Sciences

4.7 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 25 February 2024

⏱️ 99 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Please join my mailing list here 👉 https://briankeating.com/list to win a meteorite 💥 What do you get when you combine the minds of a Nobel Prize-winning theoretical physicist and an outstanding artist? The Warped Side of Our Universe by Kip Thorne and Lia Halloran! A remarkable book that explores Thorne's astrophysical discoveries through poetic verse and otherworldly paintings. Today, Kip and Lia will guide us through the process of creating their wonderful book. Tune in! Kip Thorne is a theoretical physicist known for his contributions to gravitational physics and astrophysics. In 2017, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics along with Rainer Weiss and Barry Barish for decisive contributions to the LIGO detector and the observation of gravitational waves. Lia Halloran is an award-winning painter and photographer. She received her BFA at UCLA and her MFA in Painting in Printmaking at Yale. She serves as Associate Professor of Art and Director of the Painting and Drawing Department at Chapman University in Orange, CA. Key Takeaways: 00:00:00 Judging a book by its cover 00:04:46 What would Stephen Hawking make of the LIGO detector? 00:08:04 The color choices in the book 00:11:55 The origin story of their collaboration 00:21:33 The two cultures and the scientific revolution 00:33:16 Teaching arts and physics 00:44:42 Fermilab and the intersection of arts and science 00:51:10 Is the Big Bang too good to be true? 00:59:45 The criticisms of LIGO 01:08:16 What motivates Kip and Lia? 01:14:41 Kip’s bet with Stephen Hawking 01:15:54 Can human beings be replaced? 01:21:28 Kip’s book Gravitation 01:25:20 The most magical human invention 01:29:14 What were Kip and Lia wrong about? 01:34:05 Advice for their younger selves 01:37:26 Outro — Additional resources: 📚 The Warped Side of Our Universe by Kip and Lia: https://a.co/d/4JttLua 📝 Get one month of Snipd Premium for free with this link: https://get.snipd.com/Cx7S/brianSnipd Snipd lets you take Smart Notes 🧠 with AI 💡 — it’s my favorite podcast player 😀 ! 📢 Ownership of your health starts with AG1. Try AG1 and get a FREE 1-year supply of Vitamin D3K2 and 5 FREE AG1 Travel Packs with your first purchase 👉 https://drinkag1.com/impossible ➡️ Follow me on your fav platforms: ✖️ Twitter: https://twitter.com/DrBrianKeating 🔔 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/DrBrianKeating?sub_confirmation=1 📝 Join my mailing list: https://briankeating.com/list ✍️ Check out my blog: https://briankeating.com/cosmic-musings/ 🎙️ Follow my podcast: https://briankeating.com/podcast Into the Impossible with Brian Keating is a podcast dedicated to all those who want to explore the universe within and beyond the known. Make sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	And today's highly illustrated episode of The Impossible featuring Kip Thorne, a renowned theoretical physicist and Leah Halloran, an award-winning artist.
0:09.8	Kip, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist, is celebrated for his contributions to the theoretical understanding of black holes, wormholes, and especially to the LIGO experiment that resulted in his winning the 2017 Nobel Prize in physics.
0:23.8	And Leah's artistic endeavors have gracefully
0:26.2	navigated the intersection of art and science.
0:29.6	Kit, of course, has been known for his work
0:31.7	with Christopher Nolan, an
0:33.2	interstellar making it into a scientifically accurate depiction of what a
0:37.6	black hole would look like. Together, Kip and Leah have authored the
0:41.5	warp side of our universe, a remarkable book that explores
0:45.2	Kip's theoretical astrophysical discoveries and predictions through poetic verse and
0:50.0	other worldly paintings. There's even a depiction of my bicep to experiment in here.
0:54.8	If you look closely,
0:56.2	want to know what a weird and wild marvelous phenomena
0:59.6	inhabit the warp sign?
1:01.0	We'll tune into this episode and you're about to find out. sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
1:14.3	Open the pod bay doors now.
1:18.6	I never thought that Kip would write a book that would rival in mass or in gravity the book that I have here.
1:26.5	And as I told you guys, I put this one down. I always told my students when I'm teaching gravitation, Kipp, I always tell them the tell them the book is part of the lab class for the class.
1:37.0	You guys wrote this wonderful new book,
1:39.0	The Warpside of the Universe,
1:41.0	as I told you, the favorite thing that I love to do with authors when they
1:45.7	come on is do what you're not supposed to do which is to judge a book by its cover.
	...

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