Allan Adams: What the discovery of gravitational waves means
Allan Adams: O que realmente significa a descoberta das ondas gravitacionais
Allan Adams is a theoretical physicist working at the intersection of fluid dynamics, quantum field theory and string theory. Full bio
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prenderam-se numa espiral,
na direção um do outro,
que dava para três sóis
do que todas as estrelas
their energy in light.
eles são buracos negros.
into the fabric of space and time itself,
para o interior do tecido do espaço-tempo,
em ondas gravitacionais.
in gravitational waves.
of the timescale at work here.
da escala de tempo de que falamos.
que a vida multicelular evoluísse.
multicellular life.
a Terra fez com que evoluíssem
pessoas e até — meu Deus — a Internet.
and even -- God save us -- the Internet.
particularmente audacioso
and Ronald Drever at Caltech --
e Ronald Drever na Caltech —
for the gravitational waves
como buracos negros.
que eles estavam loucos.
that they were brilliant nuts
que eles eram uns loucos brilhantes
decided to fund their crazy idea.
decidiu financiar a louca ideia deles.
de cortar a respiração,
chamado LIGO:
Gravitational-Wave Observatory.
por Interferómetro Laser.
a huge expansion in its accuracy,
aumento em termos de exatidão,
in its detection ability.
na sua capacidade de deteção.
é agora chamado LIGO Avançado.
a few lingering details.
os últimos detalhes.
depois de se ter ligado o detetor,
had gone live,
from those colliding black holes
da colisão desses buracos negros
na minha vida mais emocionantes:
There's two moments in my life
do meu pai, doente terminal.
to my father when he was terminally ill.
of my career, basically.
da minha carreira profissional.
it's no longer science fiction! (Laughs)
— já não é ficção científica!
and collaborator, Scott Hughes,
e colaborador, Scott Hughes,
gravitational waves from black holes
provenientes dos buracos negros
on observatories like LIGO,
e captados em observatórios como o LIGO,
what I mean by a gravitational wave.
com "onda gravitacional".
of general relativity
de relatividade geral
in their classes on general relativity.
para demonstrar essa teoria.
it stretches and expands."
estica-se e expande-se."
they're preposterously weak.
são absurdamente fracas.
on September 14 --
em 14 de setembro
stretched and compressed
se esticou e se comprimiu
the average person
esticaram o indivíduo médio
elevada à 21.ª potência.
the LIGO people were nuts.
do LIGO eram malucos.
long -- and that's already crazy --
de comprimento — e isso já é de loucos —
the length of those detectors
desses detetores
of the radius of the nucleus
do raio do núcleo de um átomo.
of his classic text on gravity,
texto clássico sobre a gravidade,
da seguinte forma:
for gravitational waves as follows:
to be surmounted
of a broad lay public,
de um grande público leigo,
serão, certamente, superados."
acts like an ear
funciona mais como um ouvido
de onda, uma dimensão
than the things around you,
ao vosso redor,
ou mapa das coisas à nossa volta,
or a map of the things around you,
vinda de diferentes pontos
coming from different spots
de onda que chegar a ter 15 metros.
that can be up to 50 feet long.
impossible -- to make an image
de que realmente gostemos.
para ouvirmos características
to listen for features like pitch
por detrás dos sons.
of gravitational waves.
para as ondas gravitacionais.
imagens simples de coisas no Universo.
of things out in the Universe.
of those waves,
that those waves are telling.
que essas ondas nos contam.
are in the audio band.
encontram-se na faixa audível.
em ondas de pressão e ar, em som,
into pressure waves and air, into sound,
o universo a falar connosco.
the Universe speaking to us.
desta maneira, apenas,
just in this way,
of two black holes,
de dois buracos negros,
an awful lot of time thinking about.
passou muitíssimo tempo a pensar.
negros não são giratórios,
are non-spinning,
muito rapidamente, terei o mesmo ruído,
very rapidly, I have that same chirp,
gravado nesta forma de onda.
imprinted on this waveform.
permanecerá na minha memória,
going to live in my memory,
that is the sound of --
este é o som de...
each of about 30 solar masses,
um com cerca de 30 vezes a massa solar,
in your blender.
para pensar sobre o que isto significa.
to think about what that means.
in the Universe,
as coisas mais densas do Universo,
100 times per second
100 vezes por segundo
to observe the Universe
de observar o Universo,
que não conseguimos ver
that we can't see --
stars explode in supernovae.
gigantes explodem em supernovas.
about the Universe from them.
sobre o Universo a partir delas.
physics happens in the core,
interessante acontece no núcleo,
thousands of kilometers
atrás de milhares de quilómetros
it's opaque to light.
porque é opaco à luz.
as if it were glass --
como se este fosse vidro;
to be able to explore
is obscured by its own afterglow.
é obscurecido pelo seu próprio brilho.
all the way back to the beginning.
are things out there
se ouvirmos.
discover by listening.
in that very first event,
que não esperávamos.
members of the LIGO collaboration,
e membro-chave do projeto LIGO,
a falar exatamente sobre isso:
addressing exactly that:
which produce the black holes
que produzem buracos negros
that are old, from prehistoric times,
dos tempos pré-históricos,
como ossos de dinossauro
the dinosaur bones
a whole nother angle
completamente nova
and in the end, of course,
a existir e, claro,
nesta grande confusão.
construir detetores sofisticados
to build exquisite detectors
new observatories --
e construir novos observatórios
nova de observatórios —
than listening to the Big Bang itself?
do que ouvir o próprio Big Bang?
é sonhar em grande.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Allan Adams - Theoretical physicistAllan Adams is a theoretical physicist working at the intersection of fluid dynamics, quantum field theory and string theory.
Why you should listen
Allan Adams is a theoretical physicist working at the intersection of fluid dynamics, quantum field theory and string theory. His research in theoretical physics focuses on string theory both as a model of quantum gravity and as a strong-coupling description of non-gravitational systems.
Like water, string theory enjoys many distinct phases in which the low-energy phenomena take qualitatively different forms. In its most familiar phases, string theory reduces to a perturbative theory of quantum gravity. These phases are useful for studying, for example, the resolution of singularities in classical gravity, or the set of possibilities for the geometry and fields of spacetime. Along these lines, Adams is particularly interested in microscopic quantization of flux vacua, and in the search for constraints on low-energy physics derived from consistency of the stringy UV completion.
In other phases, when the gravitational interactions become strong and a smooth spacetime geometry ceases to be a good approximation, a more convenient description of string theory may be given in terms of a weakly-coupled non-gravitational quantum field theory. Remarkably, these two descriptions—with and without gravity—appear to be completely equivalent, with one remaining weakly-coupled when its dual is strongly interacting. This equivalence, known as gauge-gravity duality, allows us to study strongly-coupled string and quantum field theories by studying perturbative features of their weakly-coupled duals. Gauge-gravity duals have already led to interesting predictions for the quark-gluon plasma studied at RHIC. A major focus of Adams's present research is to use such dualities to find weakly-coupled descriptions of strongly-interacting condensed matter systems which can be realized in the lab.Allan Adams | Speaker | TED.com