[February 20, 2013]

Montana State University to Host One of World's First Celebrations for Einstein's Theory, Gravitational Waves

Montana State University will host one of the world's first events to celebrate the centennial of Einstein's theory of General Relativity, its final prediction, and the impending detection of gravitational waves.

To celebrate Einstein's discovery of General Relativity and share in the excitement of the first gravitational wave detections, MSU, Princeton University, NASA, the National Science Foundation and the Montana Space Grant Consortium will hold a public celebration and an international scientific workshop April 2 to 7 in Bozeman, Mont. Nicolas Yunes, 2010 recipient of NASA's Einstein Fellowship and assistant physics professor at MSU, is heading the planning committee.

The international scientific workshop is expected to draw 60 scientists from the United States, Europe and Japan who work on relativity and experimental tests of Einstein's theories. Confirmed speakers include scientists from Princeton, MIT (News - Alert), Caltech, NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab, Cornell, the University of Chicago, the Center for String and Particle Theory at the University of Maryland, the Albert Einstein Institute in Germany, the Yukawa Institute for Theoretical Physics in Kyoto, Japan, the Institu d'Astrophysique de Paris in France and the Institut de Ciencies de l'Espai in Barcelona, Spain.

The public celebration, titled "Celebrating Einstein," is designed to share with the general public the story of Einstein and his ideas, and the excitement of General Relativity, black holes and gravitational waves. The celebration brings together artists, musicians, composers, dancers, including one from Cirque du Soleil, filmmakers, architects, educators and physicists.

Physicists predict that they may be able to detect gravitational waves by the end of this decade. They say this feat will test the accuracy of Einstein's final theory and lead to revolutionary discoveries about regions of the universe that are currently inaccessible with traditional electromagnetic astronomy.

"Celebrating Einstein" begins with a public lecture series in February and March by world-renowned scientists.

The main "Celebrating Einstein" celebration in April opens with an art installation that features visualizations and sounds of a small black hole spiraling violently into a supermassive one. The week concludes with a live multimedia theatre show, featuring a danced lecture on General Relativity, live MSU symphony orchestra playing an original composition inspired by gravitational wave astronomy, and an original film featuring numerical simulations of black hole collisions.

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