Kip Thorne facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Kip Thorne
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Thorne in 2022
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| Born |
Kip Stephen Thorne
June 1, 1940 Logan, Utah, U.S.
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| Education | California Institute of Technology (BS) Princeton University (MS, PhD) |
| Known for | Gravitation (1973) Gravitational-wave astronomy Hartle–Thorne metric Hoop conjecture Interstellar (2014) LIGO Membrane paradigm Roman arch Thorne–Hawking–Preskill bet Thorne-Żytkow object |
| Spouse(s) |
Linda Jean Peterson
(m. 1960; div. 1977)Carolee Joyce Winstein
(m. 1984) |
| Children | 2 |
| Awards | Lilienfeld Prize (1996) Albert Einstein Medal (2009) Special Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics (2016) Gruber Prize in Cosmology (2016) Shaw Prize (2016) Kavli Prize (2016) Harvey Prize (2016) Princess of Asturias Award (2017) Nobel Prize in Physics (2017) Lewis Thomas Prize (2018) |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Astrophysics Gravitational physics |
| Institutions | California Institute of Technology Cornell University |
| Thesis | Geometrodynamics of cylindrical systems (1965) |
| Doctoral advisor | John Archibald Wheeler |
| Doctoral students | William L. Burke Carlton M. Caves Lee Samuel Finn Sándor J. Kovács David L. Lee Alan Lightman Don N. Page William H. Press Richard H. Price Bernard F. Schutz Sherry Suyu Saul Teukolsky Clifford Martin Will |
Kip Stephen Thorne (born June 1, 1940) is an American theoretical physicist and writer. He is famous for his work on gravity and astrophysics (the study of stars and space).
In 2017, he won the Nobel Prize in Physics. He shared this award with Rainer Weiss and Barry C. Barish. They were honored for their work on the LIGO detector. This detector helped observe gravitational waves, which are ripples in space and time.
Kip Thorne was a professor at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). He is a longtime friend and colleague of famous scientists like Stephen Hawking and Carl Sagan. He also worked as a science advisor for the movie Interstellar.
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Kip Thorne's Early Life and Education
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Kip Thorne was born in Logan, Utah, on June 1, 1940. His father was a professor of soil chemistry. His mother was an economist and the first woman to get a PhD in economics from Iowa State College. Growing up, two of his four siblings also became professors.
Thorne was very good at school from a young age. He won an award in the Westinghouse Science Talent Search while in high school. He earned his first degree in physics from Caltech in 1962. He then got his master's and PhD degrees in physics from Princeton University. His PhD advisor was John Archibald Wheeler.
Kip Thorne's Career at Caltech
Thorne became a professor at Caltech in 1967. By 1970, at age 30, he was one of the youngest full professors in Caltech's history. He held different special professorships there over the years.
In 2009, he retired from his main teaching role. He wanted to focus more on writing and working on movies. His first movie project was Interstellar. He worked with director Christopher Nolan and writer Jonathan Nolan on the film.
Thorne has guided many students who went on to become important scientists. About 50 physicists earned their PhDs at Caltech with Thorne as their mentor. He is also known for explaining complex science ideas to everyone. He has appeared on TV shows to talk about black holes, gravitational radiation, relativity, and time travel.
Kip Thorne has been married twice. He has two children, Kares Anne and Bret Carter.
Kip Thorne's Scientific Research
Kip Thorne's research mainly focuses on Einstein's theory of relativity and astrophysics. He studies relativistic stars, black holes, and especially gravitational waves. He is well-known for his ideas about wormholes and whether they could be used for time travel.
What are Gravitational Waves and LIGO?
Thorne's work helped predict how strong gravitational waves would be and how they would look when observed on Earth. These predictions are very important for LIGO. LIGO stands for Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory. It is a huge experiment designed to find and measure gravitational waves.
In 1984, Thorne helped start the LIGO Project. This was the largest project ever funded by the NSF. LIGO aims to detect tiny changes in space caused by gravitational waves. Thorne also helped design parts of LIGO and create ways to analyze the data. He worked on reducing noise in the detectors.
On February 11, 2016, scientists announced a major discovery. In September 2015, LIGO recorded the signal of two black holes colliding. This collision happened 1.3 billion light-years away. This was the first direct observation of a gravitational wave. It confirmed a big prediction of Einstein's general theory of relativity.
What is the Hoop Conjecture?
While studying for his PhD, Thorne's advisor, John Archibald Wheeler, gave him a puzzle. He asked if a cylindrical bundle of magnetic field lines would collapse under its own gravity. Thorne proved that it would not.
This made Thorne wonder why cylindrical shapes don't collapse, but spherical stars do. He realized that gravity can overcome all internal pressure only when an object is squeezed in all directions. This led him to propose his hoop conjecture.
The hoop conjecture says that an imploding star turns into a black hole when a certain "hoop" can be placed around it. This hoop has a specific circumference related to the star's mass. If this hoop can fit around the object, it will become a black hole.
Thorne and his students also developed a way to understand black holes called the "membrane paradigm." This helped explain how black holes might power quasars and active galactic nuclei. He also studied the entropy of black holes. With other scientists, he showed that black holes can spin very fast, up to 99.8% of the maximum speed allowed by physics.
Wormholes and Time Travel: Are They Possible?
Kip Thorne and his team at Caltech researched if wormholes and "time machines" could exist. They looked at whether the laws of physics allow space and time to be connected in multiple ways.
Thorne found that traversable wormholes (wormholes you could travel through) might exist. But they would need special quantum fields with "negative energy." This idea has led to more research into how quantum fields might have such negative energy.
Thorne's calculations also suggest that if time travel were possible through wormholes, it might not lead to the usual paradoxes. He believes that any situation in a time travel story could have many consistent solutions. This means that the paradoxes often seen in movies might not actually happen in physics.
Other Research Areas
Thorne also predicted the existence of Thorne–Żytkow objects. These are red supergiant stars with neutron stars at their core. He also helped develop the theory of how relativistic stars pulsate and emit gravitational radiation.
With James Hartle, Thorne described how black holes and other relativistic objects move and precess. He also helped create the Hartle-Thorne metric. This is a mathematical solution that describes the space around a slowly spinning, stable object.
Thorne has also theorized about "exotic matter." This is a type of matter that would have anti-gravity properties. It might be needed to make the universe expand faster, keep wormholes open, or even power "warp drives."
Awards and Honors
Kip Thorne has received many awards and honors for his important work. He has been elected to several prestigious academies, including the:
- American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1972)
- National Academy of Sciences
- Russian Academy of Sciences
- American Philosophical Society
Some of his notable awards include:
- American Institute of Physics Science Writing Award
- American Physical Society's Lilienfeld Prize
- Karl Schwarzschild Medal (1996)
- Albert Einstein Medal (2009)
- UNESCO Niels Bohr Medal (2010)
- Special Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics (2016)
- Gruber Prize in Cosmology (2016)
- Shaw Prize (2016)
- Kavli Prize in Astrophysics (2016)
- Harvey Prize (2016)
- Princess of Asturias Award (2017)
- Nobel Prize in Physics (2017)
- Lewis Thomas Prize (2018)
- Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement (2019)
He has also received honorary degrees from several universities. In 2016, Time magazine included him in their list of the 100 most influential people.
Images for kids
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A cylindrical bundle of magnetic field lines.
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A wormhole is a shortcut connecting two separate regions in space. The green line shows the short way through the wormhole, and the red line shows the long way through normal space.
