What Gravitational Waves Really Are (and How We Detect Them)
August 22, 2025
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6:54Now PlayingWhat Gravitational Waves Really Are (and How We Detect Them)
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as posted by the channelNeil deGrasse Tyson sits down with Nergis Mavalvala (MIT physicist, LIGO) to unpack what “ripples in spacetime” really are. Space isn’t empty—it bends, ripples, and carries waves when ultra-dense objects like black holes and neutron stars move. They explore why gravity’s changes travel at the speed of light, what we can (and can’t) say inside the event horizon, and how Hawking radiation acts as a slow quantum “leak” that lets black holes evaporate. Bonus: the classic thought experiment—if the Sun vanished, we’d learn about it 8 minutes 20 seconds later.
From 'When Black Holes Collide, with Nergis Mavalvala'
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