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

Into the Impossible With Brian Keating

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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

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Additional resources:

📚 The Warped Side of Our Universe by Kip and Lia: https://a.co/d/4JttLua

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Into the Impossible with Brian Keating is a podcast dedicated to all those who want to explore the universe within and beyond the known.

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