Hundred years after general relativity: Was Einstein right? (Prof. M. Kramer)
- Date: Jan 12, 2016
- Time: 02:30 PM - 04:00 PM (Local Time Germany)
- Speaker: Prof. Dr. Michael Kramer, MPI für Radioastronomie, Bonn
- Room: Herbert Walther Lecture Hall
- Host: MPQ
We are celebrating the centenary of Einstein's theory of general
relativity (GR). A hundred years later, efforts in testing GR and its
concepts are still being made by many colleagues around the world, using
many different approaches. To date GR has passed all experimental and
observational tests with flying colours, but in light of recent
progress in observational cosmology in particular, the question of as to
whether alternative theories of gravity need to be considered is as
topical as ever. While we are all very much looking forward to the first
direct detection of gravitational waves, it happens that nature
provides us with an almost perfect laboratory to test the strong-field
regime - in the form of radio pulsars. This talk will present some of
the recent results in the tests of general relativity and alternative
theories of gravity and outlines what we can expect in the future.