First Parish in Lexington

Black holes have been the stuff of science fiction since Karl Schwarzschild predicted their existence in 1916. In the same year, Albert Einstein showed that his theory of relativity also predicted the existence of gravitational waves – actual vibrations in the fabric of spacetime itself. One hundred years later, in 2015, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO) achieved what many, including Einstein, thought impossible: the direct detection of gravitational waves. And in 2019, the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) captured the world’s first image of a black hole’s event horizon. Tune in to Zoom on Wednesday, June 24 at 4pm for a layman’s introduction to these miracles of science.