The Kibbe Science Lecture presents Maura McLaughlin: "Timing the Cosmos: Pulsars, Gravitational Waves, and Monster Black Holes”

"Timing the Cosmos: Pulsars, Gravitational Waves, and Monster Black Holes”  

Pulsars are neutron stars formed in the supernova explosions of massive, evolved stars. Exotic objects that weigh more than the sun and can spin over 700 times per second, they possess extremely high magnetic fields—over a trillion times stronger than Earth's. In this talk, Professor McLaughlin will describe how we have used these “cosmic clocks” to construct a galaxy-sized observatory, enabling the detection of gravitational waves from the most massive black holes in the universe. 

Maura McLaughlin is the Eberly Distinguished Professor of Physics and Astronomy at West Virginia University. She earned her BS from Penn State and her PhD from Cornell, and she was an NSF Distinguished Research Fellow at the Jodrell Bank Observatory in the UK before coming to West Virginia University in 2006. 

Sponsored by the Kibbe Science Lecture Fund.
For more information, contact Jenn Berube Lord at jberube@bowdoin.edu or 207-725-3928. 
Open to the public free of charge.
A livestream of this talk will be available on Bowdoin's live events website: https://www.bowdoin.edu/live

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Co-hosted with: Physics and Astronomy, Earth & Oceanographic Science , Bowdoin Society of Physics Students

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