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April 7, 2021 outreach

Abhay Ashtekar delivered a Colloquium to the Consortium of Brazilian Universities and Research Institutes drawn from all Brazilian Provinces on April 7th 2021: 'Black Holes, Big Bang and Gravitational Waves: Examples of Paradigm Shifts in Science'

Abhay Ashtekar delivered a Colloquium to the Consortium of Brazilian Universities and Research Institutes drawn from all Brazilian Provinces on April 7th 2021: 'Black Holes, Big Bang and Gravitational Waves: Examples of Paradigm Shifts in Science'

Big Bang, Black Holes, Big Bang and Gravitational Waves now appear as compelling –even obvious– consequences of general relativity. Therefore it may seem surprising that none of these ideas were readily accepted. Not only was there considerable debate, but in fact leading figures were often arguing on what turned out to be the `wrong side’ of history. These developments provide excellent lessons for younger researchers on how science unfolds. Paradigm shifts in science occur when younger researchers have the courage not to accept ideas merely because they are mainstream; patience to systematically develop novel avenues they deeply believe in; and maturity to accept that a variety of factors –not all logical or even science related– can drive or slow down scientific progress.

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About our wordmark
Monica Rincon Ramirez

The IGC wordmark was created by Monica Rincon Ramirez while she was a graduate student at the Institute. Monica enjoys drawing new connections between fundamental theory and observations. Her graduate work included general relativity, loop quantum gravity, and quantum fields in cosmological backgrounds; her thesis focused on effective quantum corrections to gravitational phenomena from spinfoams and applications to cosmology. She received her PhD in 2024.

The wordmark symbolizes the scope of research at the IGC. The base represents quantum gravity, evoking the quantum geometrical picture from spinfoams and loop quantum gravity — approaches studied at the Center for Fundamental Theory. The middle shows galaxies embedded in a smooth surface characteristic of spacetime in general relativity and the larger physical scales studied at the Center for Theoretical and Observational Cosmology. The top curves to an extreme representing a supermassive black hole accompanied by an energetic jet, with a binary black hole pair nearby — the high-energy phenomena studied at the Center for Multimessenger Astrophysics.