Sing to Me, Oh Great Black Hole!

The Secret Science Club presents all-star astrophysicist Janna Levin

Tuesday, October 13 at the Bell House @ 8 pm, FREE!

The term “cosmic ballet” has just taken on a whole new meaning. Apparently outer space has a soundtrack. It’s not Tchaikovsky, but … When two spinning black holes orbit each other, engaging in an invisible pas-de-deux, they create gravitational waves—essentially ripples in the fabric of space-time—that cause the cosmos to “ring like a drum.”

Janna Levin is in hot pursuit of these cosmic drumbeats—and the information they carry about the distant universe. Gravitational waves were predicted by Einstein’s theory of relativity, and though there is significant evidence that gravitational waves exist, they have never been directly detected. Dr. Levin joins the Secret Science Club to discuss the interstellar search and two far-reaching space-science experiments—LIGO and LISA—that seek to capture and “hear” the beatbox of the universe for the first time.

Don’t miss a single nanosecond of this cosmic talk. Grab your outer space boogie board and catch the groovitational wave . . .

A professor of physics and astronomy at Barnard College of Columbia University, Janna Levin is the author of the award-winning books A Madman Dreams of Turing Machines and How the Universe Got Its Spots, as well as dozens of scientific papers on chaos, black holes, and the early universe.

Before & After

—Groove to far-out tunes and video

—Stick around for out-of-this-world Q&A

—Try our quantum cocktail of the night, the “Cosmos-politan” (It will rock you into orbit . . .)

The “Secret Science Club” meets Tuesday, October 13 at 8 pm @ the Bell House, 149 7th St. (between 2nd and 3rd avenues) in Gowanus, Brooklyn, p: 718.643.6510 w: http://thebellhouseny.com Subway: F to 4th Ave; R to 9th St; F or G to Smith/9th