More than 140 Rhodes Scholars, Rhodes Trust staff, and guests joined Schmidt Science Fellows to celebrate the enduring role of science across our “Network for Good”.The inaugural Science@Rhodes lecture commemorated the first of a series of historic talks given by Albert Einstein at the House in the early 1930s.
So it was fitting Professor Sheila Rowan, Director of the Centre for Gravitational Research at the University of Glasgow, was the guest speaker.
Professor Rowan’s pioneering work played a central role in the detection of gravitational waves, a phenomenon first predicted by Einstein more than 100 years ago.
Rhodes Trust Warden Sir Rick Trainor said the evening commemorated Einstein’s lectures, the first of which was held in 1931, and underlined Rhodes House as a convener of academic and intellectual ideas.
Professor Rowan said it was an honor to be invited to give the inaugural lecture, held on October 9, and stand where Einstein had stood 94 years before.
She guided the audience through the “quest” to find gravitational waves, the science of predication and of detection, and the human perseverance required to achieve the Nobel-winning goal.
Gravitational waves are ripples that stretch and squash the fabric of the universe, referred to as space-time.
They are caused by massive objects accelerating at extreme rates, such as neutron stars or black holes orbiting each other and colliding, or stars exploding (supernovae).
They pass through everything, and Einstein predicted their existence in his theory of general relativity.
“About once every 15 minutes, a gravitational wave passes through you. You are being stretched and squashed,” Professor Rowan said.
“You are not, however, as you have probably figured out, being stretched or squashed that much. You are being stretched and squashed a distance that is less than a thousandth of a proton.”
And she said it has taken an international, interdisciplinary effort over many years and across many institutions to detect those tiny ripples.
“I am one person standing before you, but actually I am going to talk to you about the work not of tens or hundreds, but of a couple of thousand people, all on a quest driven by one of the predictions of Einstein.
“A problem that was too big and too hard for any one person to solve.”
The work to develop the science and build detectors capable of detecting gravitational waves spanned multiple decades, nations, and continents.
It included disciplines from physics and chemistry to engineering and even animal behavior.
It tested the resilience and resolve of all those working in the field.
Professor Rowan’s work focused on the development and suspension of the mirror technology integral to the large instruments, laser interferometers, used to detect gravitational waves.
“People thought we were crazy, that we would never see anything,” she said.
Bookmakers at the time even ran odds of 500/1 on the collaboration making a detection.
Professor Rowan said those odds were too good to miss, and her team placed a £25 bet (the odds had shortened to 100/1 in a matter of hours before the book was closed).
But she added that, in reality: “We had placed more than £25 on detecting gravitational waves. We had placed our entire professional careers and our reputations. It’s a risky business.”
And then to the moment of discovery on 14 September 2015.
“It was a signal from two black holes, far out in the cosmos, spiraling around one another, getting closer and closer together, stretching and squashing space-time, sending out that signal across the cosmos.”
“The beautifully suspended mirrors shook just a little bit, and we picked it up.”
Worldwide attention followed, along with a Nobel Prize in 2017 for three of the leading researchers.
Ten years on, the groundbreaking technology originally developed to detect gravitational waves is being used to progress everything from stem cell biology to retinal scans.
And Professor Rowan, who has also served as Chief Scientific Adviser to the Scottish Government, left researchers with sound advice: “Don’t be afraid to take risks if you believe in what you are doing.
“Sometimes the hurdles turn out to be the foundations of success.”
Welcoming guests to Rhodes House, Schmidt Science Fellows Executive Director Megan Kenna said: “Tonight is a celebration. Not just of a single moment, or of one individual, though the echoes of a rather famous scientist still reverberate through these walls, but of something deeper.
“A way of seeing the world, a spirit of inquiry, and the power of science to illuminate, to connect, and to transform.
“This evening, we come together to celebrate science, and particularly, its place within the Rhodes community.”
The lecture also formed part of both our Schmidt Science Fellows Science Leadership Program and the Rhodes Scholars New Scholar Welcome Week, helping to further connect the two communities.
Special thanks was given to Rhodes Scholar Krishnendu Ray, whose idea that we should celebrate science across the Rhodes communities helped inspire the event.