Gravitational waves carry completely different information about universal phenomena and their detection enables the discovery of phenomena never seen before.

Professor Vecchio’s research interests include general relativity, the astrophysics of compact objects — black holes and neutron stars — and gravitational-wave experiments. He has published over 200 research papers and is a member of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration (LSC), the GEO Collaboration, the European and International Pulsar Timing Array collaborations, and the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna consortium.

Alberto Vecchio is a physicist and a Professor of Astrophysics at the University of Birmingham. He was a contributor in Advanced LIGO— a large-scale physics experiment and observatory — which resulted in the groundbreaking discovery of gravitational waves in February 2016.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx