“Young Italian scholars travelling between East and West”: A lecture by Natalia Pinzani-Fokeeva, University of Florence and University of Amsterdam, presently post-doc researcher at the Technion, Haifa.
It was November 1915 when Einstein published his theory of general relativity revolutionising the way of thinking about the gravitational interaction between celestial bodies. Space and time are no longer considered as fixed and separate entities, but form a single space-time fabric, which can be curved by the presence of massive objects.
This discovery brought to a more accurate calculation of the motion of planets orbiting around the sun, as well as to the prediction, for example, of blacks holes: very massive objects that attract everything, even light itself! Only 100 years later, in September 2015, the LIGO laboratory in the US observed for the very first time the gravitational waves: space-time ripples created by two very massive black holes in rotation around each other.
In this seminar I will go through the principles of general relativity, of the gravitational waves and of their discovery. This brings us into a new era of astronomical observation (together with VIRGO laboratory in Pisa), which will allow us to “listen” to the sound of the universe.
Natalia Pinzani-Fokeeva is a Post Doctoral researcher at Technion in Haifa since October 2015. She obtained a Ph.D at the University of Amsterdam in 2015 and graduated from the University of Florence in Theoretical Physics in 2011. Even if she was always interested in the mysteries of the universe, her passion for physics begun at the age of 15 after reading the book “Why things are the way they are” by B. Chandrasekhar, that unrevealed her the world of photons and quantum physics. Nowadays, she is trying to find a common ground between the two pillars of modern physics: the theory of general relativity of Einstein and quantum mechanics by means of string theory, holographic gravity, fluid dynamics and quantum information theory. When things are not working she goes to the beach to play volleyball.
Event in Italian.
Tuesday, September 27th, 2016, at 19:00
Italian Cultural Institute
rehov Meir Rutberg 12 – Haifa
FREE ADMISSION
Reservation no longer available