“More Things in Heaven and Earth”: Spacetime, Black Holes, and Gravitational Waves

The 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded for the first-ever detection of gravitational waves, confirming a 100-year-old prediction of Einstein’s. The discovery, announced in 2015, launched a new era of gravitational wave astronomy, but also raises challenging philosophical questions about the nature of space, time and gravity. What are gravitational waves and how are they being used to study the universe? And is there an inherent conflict between General Relativity and key metaphysical principles?

This talk was recorded live at Objectivist Summer Conference 2018 in Newport Beach, California.

A video version of this talk that includes supporting images can be found on ARI’s YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwJ8Rl-dN9s