Kip Thorne
Kip Thorne | |
---|---|
Born | Kip Stephen Thorne June 1, 1940 Logan, Utah, U.S. |
Education | California Institute of Technology (BS) Princeton University (MS, PhD) |
Known for | Thorne-Żytkow object Roman arch Thorne-Hawking-Preskill bet LIGO Gravitational waves Gravitation |
Spouses | Linda Jean Peterson
(m. 1960; div. 1977)Carolee Joyce Winstein
(m. 1984) |
Children | 2 |
Awards | Gravitational physics |
Institutions | California Institute of Technology Cornell University |
Thesis | Geometrodynamics of cylindrical systems (1965) |
Doctoral advisor | John Archibald Wheeler |
Doctoral students | William L. Burke[2] Carlton M. Caves Lee Samuel Finn Sándor J. Kovács David L. Lee Alan Lightman Don N. Page William H. Press Richard H. Price Bernard F. Schutz Saul Teukolsky Clifford Martin Will |
Kip Stephen Thorne (born June 1, 1940) is an American
A longtime friend and colleague of Stephen Hawking and Carl Sagan, he was the Richard P. Feynman Professor of Theoretical Physics at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) until 2009[7] and speaks of the astrophysical implications of the general theory of relativity. He continues to do scientific research and scientific consulting, most notably for the Christopher Nolan film Interstellar.[8][9]
Life and career
Thorne was born on June 1, 1940, in
Thorne rapidly excelled at academics early in life, winning recognition in the
Thorne returned to Caltech as an associate professor in 1967 and became a professor of theoretical physics in 1970, becoming one of the youngest full professors in the history of Caltech at age 30. He became the William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor in 1981, and the Feynman Professor of Theoretical Physics in 1991. He was an adjunct professor at the University of Utah from 1971 to 1998 and Andrew D. White Professor at Large at Cornell University from 1986 to 1992.[17] In June 2009, he resigned his Feynman Professorship (he is now the Feynman Professor of Theoretical Physics, Emeritus) to pursue a career of writing and movie making.[citation needed] His first film project was Interstellar, on which he worked with Christopher Nolan and Jonathan Nolan.[7]
Throughout the years, Thorne has served as a mentor and thesis advisor to many leading theorists who now work on observational, experimental, or astrophysical aspects of general relativity. Approximately 50 physicists have received PhDs at Caltech under Thorne's personal mentorship.[7]
Thorne is known for his ability to convey the excitement and significance of discoveries in gravitation and astrophysics to both professional and lay audiences. His presentations on subjects such as
Thorne and Linda Jean Peterson married in 1960. Their children are Kares Anne and Bret Carter, an architect. Thorne and Peterson divorced in 1977. Thorne and his second wife, Carolee Joyce Winstein, a professor of biokinesiology and physical therapy at USC, married in 1984.[18]
Research
Thorne's research has principally focused on
Gravitational waves and LIGO
Thorne's work has dealt with the prediction of gravitational wave strengths and their temporal signatures as observed on Earth. These "signatures" are of great relevance to
On February 11, 2016, a team of four physicists[a] representing the LIGO Scientific Collaboration, announced that in September 2015, LIGO recorded the signature of two black holes colliding 1.3 billion light-years away. This recorded detection was the first direct observation of the fleeting chirp of a gravitational wave and confirmed a prediction of the general theory of relativity.[22][23][24][25][26]
Black hole cosmology
While studying for his PhD at Princeton University, his mentor John Wheeler assigned him a problem to think over: find out whether or not a cylindrical bundle of repulsive magnetic field lines will implode under its own attractive gravitational force. After several months wrestling with the problem, he proved that it was impossible for cylindrical magnetic field lines to implode.[27]: 262–265
Why won't a cylindrical bundle of magnetic field lines implode, while spherical stars will implode under their own gravitational force? Thorne tried to explore the theoretical ridge between these two phenomena. He eventually determined that the gravitational force can overcome all interior pressure only when an object has been compressed in all directions. To express this realization, Thorne proposed his hoop conjecture, which describes an imploding star turning into a black hole when the critical circumference of the designed hoop can be placed around it and set into rotation. That is, any object of mass M around which a hoop of circumference can be spun must be a black hole.[27]: 266–267 [28]: 189–190
As a tool to be used in both enterprises — astrophysics and theoretical physics — Thorne and his students have developed an unusual approach, called the "
Thorne has investigated the quantum statistical mechanical origin of the entropy of a black hole. With his postdoc Wojciech Zurek, he showed that the entropy of a black hole is the logarithm of the number of ways that the hole could have been made.[27]: 445–446
With Igor Novikov and Don Page, he developed the general relativistic theory of thin accretion disks around black holes, and using this theory he deduced that with a doubling of its mass by such accretion a black hole will be spun up to 0.998 of the maximum spin allowed by general relativity, but not any farther. This is probably the maximum black-hole spin allowed in nature.[7]
Wormholes and time travel
Thorne and his co-workers at Caltech conducted scientific research on whether the laws of physics permit space and time to be multiply connected (can there exist classical, traversable wormholes and "time machines"?).[29] With Sung-Won Kim, Thorne identified a universal physical mechanism (the explosive growth of vacuum polarization of quantum fields), that may always prevent spacetime from developing closed timelike curves (i.e., prevent backward time travel).[30]
With Mike Morris and Ulvi Yurtsever, he showed that traversable wormholes can exist in the structure of spacetime only if they are threaded by quantum fields in quantum states that violate the averaged null energy condition (i.e. have negative renormalized energy spread over a sufficiently large region).[31] This has triggered research to explore the ability of quantum fields to possess such extended negative energy. Recent calculations by Thorne indicate that simple masses passing through traversable wormholes could never engender paradoxes – there are no initial conditions that lead to paradox once time travel is introduced. If his results can be generalized, they would suggest that none of the supposed paradoxes formulated in time travel stories can actually be formulated at a precise physical level: that is, that any situation in a time travel story turns out to permit many consistent solutions.[citation needed]
Relativistic stars, multipole moments and other endeavors
With
Thorne has also theoretically predicted the existence of universally antigravitating "exotic matter" – the element needed to accelerate the expansion rate of the universe, keep traversable wormhole "Star Gates" open and keep timelike geodesic free float "warp drives" working. With Clifford Will[34] and others of his students, he laid the foundations for the theoretical interpretation of experimental tests of relativistic theories of gravity – foundations on which Will and others then built. As of 2005[update], Thorne was interested in the origin of classical space and time from the quantum foam of quantum gravity theory.[citation needed]
Publications
Thorne has written and edited books on topics in gravitational theory and
Thorne's articles have appeared in publications such as:
- Scientific American,[38]
- McGraw-Hill Yearbook of Science and Technology,[39]and
- Collier's Encyclopedia[40] among others.
Thorne has published more than 150 articles in scholarly journals.[41]
Honors and awards
Thorne has been elected to:[42]
- the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1972)[43]
- the National Academy of Sciences,
- the Russian Academy of Sciences, and
- the American Philosophical Society.
He has been recognized by numerous awards including:
- the American Institute of Physics Science Writing Award in Physics and Astronomy,
- the Phi Beta KappaScience Writing Award,
- the American Physical Society's Lilienfeld Prize,
- the German Astronomical Society's Karl Schwarzschild Medal(1996),
- the University of Newcastle, England,
- the Sigma Xi: The Scientific Research Society's Common Wealth Awards for Science and Invention, and
- the California Science Center's California Scientist of the Year Award (2003).
- the Albert Einstein Medal in 2009 from the Albert Einstein Society, Bern, Switzerland
- the UNESCO Niels Bohr Medal from UNESCO (2010)[44]
- the Special Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics(2016)
- the Gruber Prize in Cosmology (2016)
- the Shaw Prize (2016) (together with Ronald Drever and Rainer Weiss).[45]
- the Kavli Prize in Astrophysics (2016) (together with Ronald Drever and Rainer Weiss).[46]
- the Tomalla Prize (2016) for extraordinary contributions to general relativity and gravity.[47]
- the Georges Lemaître Prize (2016)
- the Harvey Prize (2016) (together with Ronald Drever and Rainer Weiss).[48]
- the Smithsonian Magazine American Ingenuity Award for Physical Sciences (2016)[49]
- the
- the Nobel Prize in Physics (2017) (jointly with Rainer Weiss and Barry Barish)
- the Lewis Thomas Prize (2018)
- the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement (2019)[51]
He has been a
He was elected to hold the Lorentz chair for the year 2009 Leiden University, the Netherlands.
Thorne has served on:
- the International Committee on General Relativity and Gravitation,
- the Committee on US-USSR Cooperation in Physics, and
- the National Academy of Sciences' Space Science Board, which has advised NASA and Congress on space science policy.
Kip Thorne was selected by Time magazine in an annual list of the 100 most influential people in the American world in 2016.[52]
Adaptation in media
- Thorne contributed ideas on wormhole travel to Carl Sagan for use in his novel Contact.[53]
- Thorne and his friend, producer Lynda Obst, also developed the concept for the Christopher Nolan film Interstellar.[54] He also wrote a tie-in book, The Science of Interstellar. Thorne later advised Nolan on the physics of his movie Tenet,[55] and advised Cillian Murphy on his portrayal of J. Robert Oppenheimer in Nolan's film Oppenheimer.[56]
- In Larry Niven's novel Rainbow Mars, the time travel technology used in the novel is based on the wormhole theories of Thorne, which in the context of the novel was when time travel first became possible, rather than just fantasy. As a result, any attempts to travel in time prior to Thorne's development of wormhole theory results in the time traveller entering a fantastic version of reality, rather than the actual past.[57]
- In the film The Theory of Everything, Thorne was portrayed by actor Enzo Cilenti.[58]
- Thorne played himself in the episode of The Big Bang Theory entitled "The Laureate Accumulation".
- Thorne is featured in an episode of the documentary series The Craftsman entitled "Science, Art & Inspiration".
Partial bibliography
- Misner, Charles W., Thorne, K. S. and Wheeler, John Archibald, Gravitation 1973, (W H Freeman & Co)
- Thorne, K. S., in 300 Years of Gravitation, (Eds.) S. W. Hawking and W. Israel, 1987, (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press), Gravitational Radiation.
- Thorne, K. S., Price, R. H. and Macdonald, DM, Black Holes, The Membrane Paradigm, 1986, (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press).
- Friedman, J., Morris, MS, Novikov, I. D., Echeverria, F., Klinkhammer, G., Thorne, K. S. and Yurtsever, U., Physical Review D., 1990, (in press), Closed Timelike Curves.
- Thorne, K. S. and Blandford, R. D., Modern Classical Physics: Optics, Fluids, Plasmas, Elasticity, Relativity, and Statistical Physics, 2017, (Princeton: Princeton University Press).
Notes
- ^ The announcement team were Thorne, David Reitze, Gabriela González, Rainer Weiss, and France A. Córdova.
References
- ^ "einstein medal". Einstein-bern.ch. Retrieved December 7, 2014.
- ^ "Kip Stephen Thorne". Mathematics Genealogy Project. North Dakota State University. Retrieved September 6, 2016.
- ^ "The Nobel Prize in Physics 2017". The Nobel Foundation. October 3, 2017. Retrieved October 3, 2017.
- ^ Rincon, Paul; Amos, Jonathan (October 3, 2017). "Einstein's waves win Nobel Prize". BBC News. Retrieved October 3, 2017.
- ^ Overbye, Dennis (October 3, 2017). "2017 Nobel Prize in Physics Awarded to LIGO Black Hole Researchers". The New York Times. Retrieved October 3, 2017.
- ^ Kaiser, David (October 3, 2017). "Learning from Gravitational Waves". The New York Times. Retrieved October 3, 2017.
- ^ a b c d e f "Kip S. Thorne: Biographical Sketch". www.its.caltech.edu. Retrieved May 8, 2020.
- ^ Kevin P. Sullivan (December 16, 2013). "Christopher Nolan's 'Interstellar' Trailer: Watch Now". MTV. Retrieved October 30, 2014.
- ^ "Watch Exclusive: The Science of Interstellar - WIRED - WIRED Video - CNE". WIRED Videos. Archived from the original on December 5, 2014. Retrieved December 7, 2014.
- ^ "Kip S. Thorne Biography". NobelPrize.org.
- ^ Grant Kimm, Webmaster- The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Iowa State University. "Plaza of Heroines at Iowa State University". Las.iastate.edu. Archived from the original on August 14, 2015. Retrieved December 7, 2014.
- ^ Jones, Zachary (2011). "D. Wynne Thorne Papers, 1936-1983". Archives West. Orbis Cascade Alliance.
- ^ "Dr. Alison Comish Thorne". Legacy.com. The Salt Lake Tribune Obituaries. October 26, 2004. Retrieved September 7, 2016.
- ^ Rory Carroll (June 21, 2013). "Kip Thorne: physicist studying time travel tapped for Hollywood film". Guardian News and Media Limited. Retrieved October 30, 2014.
Thorne grew up in an academic, Mormon family in Utah but is now an atheist. "There are large numbers of my finest colleagues who are quite devout and believe in God, ranging from an abstract humanist God to a very concrete Catholic or Mormon God. There is no fundamental incompatibility between science and religion. I happen to not believe in God."
- ^ Piper, Matthew (October 3, 2017). "Utah-born Kip Thorne wins the Nobel Prize in physics for his role in detecting gravitational waves". The Salt Lake Tribune.
- .
- ^ "Kip S. Thorne". history.aip.org.
- ^ Kondrashov, Veronica. "Kip S. Thorne: Curriculum Vitae". Kip S. Thorn. California Institute of Technology.
- ^ Cofield, Cala (December 19, 2014). "Time Travel and Wormholes:Physicist Kip Thorne's Wildest Theories". Space.com.
- ^ "LIGO: The Search for Gravitational Waves". National Science Foundation. Archived from the original on September 15, 2016. Retrieved September 9, 2016.
LIGO is the largest single enterprise undertaken by NSF, with capital investments of nearly $300 million and operating costs of more than $30 million/year.
- ^ "Catching waves with Kip Thorne". plus.maths.org. December 1, 2001. Retrieved May 8, 2020.
- ^ "Gravitational Waves Detected 100 Years After Einstein's Prediction". ligo.caltech.edu. February 11, 2016.
- ISSN 0028-792X. Retrieved February 11, 2016.
- S2CID 124959784.
- ^ Naeye, Robert (February 11, 2016). "Gravitational Wave Detection Heralds New Era of Science". Sky and Telescope. Retrieved February 11, 2016.
- S2CID 182916902. Retrieved February 11, 2016.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-393-31276-8.
- ISBN 978-94-011-5139-9.
- PMID 12197102.
- PMID 10013359.
- PMID 10038800.
- doi:10.1086/155109.
- PMID 9955908.
- doi:10.1086/150803.
- ISBN 0-7167-0344-0.
- ^ "A Guide to Relativity books". John Baez, Chris Hillman. Department of Mathematics, University of California at Riverside. 1998. Retrieved June 19, 2016.
- ISBN 978-0-69115902-7.
- ^ "Stories by Kip S Thorne". Scientific American. Retrieved November 9, 2017.
- ^ K.S. Thorne, "Gravitational Collapse," in 1976 McGraw-Hill Yearbook of Science and Technology (McGraw-Hill Book Company, New York, 1967), pp. 193-195
- ^ K.S. Thorne, "Gravitational Collapse," Collier's Encyclopedia (Crowell-Collier Educational Corporation, New York, 1969), pp. 335-336
- ^ "Abstract search for refereed papers with fewer than 20 authors including author "Kip, Thorne"". ui.adsabs.harvard.edu.
- ^ "Kip S. Thorne: Curriculum Vitae". Caltech. Retrieved September 18, 2016.
- ^ "Book of Members, 1780–2010: Chapter T" (PDF). American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Retrieved April 15, 2011.
- ^ "UNESCO's Niels Bohr Gold Medal awarded to prominent physicists". Niels Bohr Institute. September 14, 2010. Archived from the original on December 21, 2017. Retrieved December 8, 2016.
- ^ "The Shaw Prize - Top prizes for astronomy, life science and mathematics". www.shawprize.org. Archived from the original on March 3, 2018. Retrieved May 8, 2020.
- ^ "9 Scientific Pioneers Receive The 2016 Kavli Prizes". prnewswire.com. June 2, 2016.
- ^ "The Tomalla prize holders". The Tomalla Foundation. Retrieved September 18, 2016.
- ^ "Prize Winners – Harvey Prize". harveypz.net.technion.ac.il. Retrieved May 8, 2020.
- ^ "2016 American Ingenuity Award Winners". Smithsonian. Archived from the original on October 11, 2018. Retrieved October 15, 2018.
- ^ IT, Developed with webControl CMS by Intermark. "Rainer Weiss, Kip S. Thorne, Barry C. Barish and LIGO Scientific Collaboration - Laureates - Princess of Asturias Awards". The Princess of Asturias Foundation. Retrieved May 8, 2020.
- American Academy of Achievement.
- ^ "Kip Thorne". Christopher Nolan. Time magazine. April 21, 2016. Retrieved May 8, 2016.
- ^ "Contact – High Technology Lends a Hand/Science of the Soundstage". Warner Bros. Archived from the original on March 4, 2001. Retrieved September 1, 2014.
- ^ Fernandez, Jay A. (March 28, 2007). "Writer with real stars in his eyes". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved September 1, 2014.
- ^ Maddox, Garry (August 22, 2020). "'The biggest film I've done': Christopher Nolan on the secret world of Tenet". The Sydney Morning Herald. Archived from the original on August 23, 2020. Retrieved August 23, 2020.
- ^ The science of Oppenheimer: meet the Oscar-winning movie’s specialist advisers
- ^ Larry Niven. Rainbow Mars. New York: Tor Books, 1999, pp. 45, 366.
- ^ Tunzelmann, Alex von (January 7, 2015). "The Theory of Everything skips over the black holes of marriage and science". The Guardian. Retrieved September 29, 2016.
External links
- Media related to Kip Thorne at Wikimedia Commons
- Kip Thorne at IMDb
- Home Page at California Institute of Technology
- Kip Thorne at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
- Crunch Time
- Founding Fathers of Relativity
- Kip S. Thorne on Nobelprize.org