With just a few months left for APOGEE, Scientia, the pre-APOGEE talk series, was organized by the CoStAA on a chilly winter’s evening on the 17th of January. This year, Dr Bala Iyer, a prominent physicist who has worked with the likes of Kip Thorne, was invited to talk about his ongoing research in gravitational waves and shed light on his field of expertise.

Dr Iyer is currently the Simons Visiting Professor at ICTS-TIFR Bangalore. He serves as Chairman of the IndIGO Consortium and is part of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration. He is also one of the core team members of the LIGO-India Mega Project. His talk was titled: “The Detection of Gravitational Waves and the Dawn of the associated Multi-messenger Astronomy”, a topic of considerable interest given the recent discovery of gravitational waves. 

Prior to his talk, in an interview with the English Press Club, Dr Iyer spoke at length about his college days and his interest in physics. He was first influenced by an article about time by Jayant Narlikar in Science Today. Soon, his interests took him to the general theory of relativity around the same time that breakthroughs were being made in this field by eminent physicists like Stephen Hawking. After working on the theory of relativity for around ten years, he decided he wanted a new challenge and switched fields. Gravitational-wave physics was an unknown topic at the time, but as opportunities came his way, he started working in this unexplored field. Referring to this kind of flexibility, he lamented the fact that the courses in colleges continue to be pedagogic and uninspiring. He stressed the importance of study groups in college, which provide novel outlooks on topics and increase aptitude and interest. 

Dr Iyer began his talk by discussing gravity from a historical perspective. He explained that many famous discoveries carved a path to the formation of LIGO. These include the contribution of scientific greats like Issac Newton, Albert Einstein, and Richard Feynman, followed by their modern counterparts: physicists such as Kip Thorne, Reiner Weiss, and Barry Barish. 

The discovery of gravitational waves is one of the biggest milestones in modern physics, with the potential to impact astrophysics, cosmology, and fundamental physics. Dr Iyer made special mention of the LIGO India initiative. LIGO India is an observatory meant to complement and improve the functioning of the one in the USA and is under construction in Hingoli, Maharashtra. This initiative will increase the area of the universe that can be scoped in a single observation. With a highly sensitive instrument planned for the LIGO India initiative, it will be possible to produce accurate data. Dr Iyer also spoke highly about the contributions of various Indian engineers, physicists, and data scientists that made LIGO possible. He finally talked about the difficulties faced by the physicists at LIGO, the concepts behind them, and how they managed to rectify them.

This talk detailing one of the fastest-growing fields in modern-day physics was well applauded by the audience for its technical excellence. The humility and simplicity of the presentation kept onlookers enthralled. After a vote of thanks, the talk concluded with a reminder that this and other pre-fest events were also worth APOGEE Kind Store points.