Abstract:
Modern astronomy started four centuries ago with Galileo’s invention of the astronomical telescope. In the past century, astronomical observations using different wavelengths of electromagnetic waves revolutionised our understanding of the Cosmos. Recently, observations using subatomic particles such as neutrinos and cosmic rays also have emerged as powerful means of probing the Cosmos. The newest frontier of astronomy is observations of gravitational waves — the elusive ripples in spacetime predicted by Albert Einstein a century ago. This lecture will take a walk through the different frontiers of astronomy.
About the Speaker:
Ajith Parameswaran is an astrophysicist at ICTS-TIFR, Bengaluru. His research spans various aspects of gravitational-wave physics and astronomy. Ajith has been a Ramanujan Fellow, a CIFAR Azrieli Global Scholar and the head of the Max Planck Partner Group on Astrophysical Relativity at ICTS. As a member of the LIGO team that discovered gravitational waves, he is the recipient of the 2016 Special Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics and the 2016 Gruber Cosmology Prize. Recently he was awarded the TWAS-CAS Young Scientist Award for Frontier Science by the World Academy of Sciences.
