The Big Picture: Photographing the Black Hole at the Center of the Galaxy
Dr. Larry Price
Starting in April 2017, international researchers linked radio telescopes around the world, aiming them simultaneously at Sagittarius A* (pronounced A-star), the enormous black hole at the center of our galaxy.
The goal? To take a picture of a supposedly invisible object in space, the black hole itself. Data from this remarkable Event Horizon Telescope project are currently being analyzed. What will we learn? What will it all mean?
Dr. Larry Price is curious, too. He will speak at The Belfry on Tuesday, March 26 for the next lecture in the 2018-19 Frontiers in Science series, sponsored by the Sisters Science Club.
“Success will provide the first opportunity to measure directly the properties of black holes, still-mysterious objects which have only been observed indirectly until now,” Dr. Price explains.
The research will provide an incomparable test of Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity at extreme values of the gravitational field, Dr. Price says. And, perhaps most important, it should give scientists important clues with which to construct the still-elusive quantum theory of gravity.
Dr. Price will explain all of this, without assuming any technical knowledge on the part of the audience, to provide a good framework for following what should be one of the hot scientific stories of 2019 and beyond.
Dr. Price, a physicist specializing in elementary particles, holds degrees in physics from Pomona College (BA) and Harvard University (MA and PhD). He is retired from a career at Argonne National Laboratory, where he held the rank of senior physicist and was Director of the High Energy Physics Division. He has served on multiple national and international committees for particle physics and related fields, including the High Energy Physics Advisory Panel, the U.S. Federal Advisory Committee for elementary particle physics.
