Thorne was born on June 1, 1940, inLogan, Utah. His father, D. Wynne Thorne (1908–1979), was a professor ofsoil chemistry atUtah State University, and his mother, Alison (née Comish; 1914–2004), was an economist and the first woman to receive aPhD in economics fromIowa State College.[11][12] Raised in an academic environment, two of his four siblings also became professors.[13][14] Thorne's parents were members ofthe Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) and raised Thorne in the LDS faith, though he now describes himself asatheist. Shortly before his mother's death, she urged Kip and his siblings to leave the LDS Church because of its discrimination against women, which they all did. Regarding his views on science and religion, Thorne has stated: "There are large numbers of my finest colleagues who are quite devout and believe in God .... There is no fundamental incompatibility between science and religion. I happen to not believe in God."[15][16]
Thorne returned to Caltech as an associate professor in 1967 and became a professor of theoretical physics in 1970, becoming one of the youngest full professors in the history of Caltech at age 30. He became the William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor in 1981, and theFeynman Professor of Theoretical Physics in 1991. He was an adjunct professor at theUniversity of Utah from 1971 to 1998 and Andrew D. White Professor at Large atCornell University from 1986 to 1992.[19] In June 2009, he resigned his Feynman Professorship (he is now the Feynman Professor of Theoretical Physics, Emeritus) to pursue a career of writing and movie making.[citation needed] His first film project wasInterstellar, on which he worked withChristopher Nolan andJonathan Nolan.[8]
Throughout the years, Thorne has served as a mentor and thesis advisor to many leading theorists who now work on observational, experimental, or astrophysical aspects of general relativity. Approximately 50 physicists have received PhDs at Caltech under Thorne's personal mentorship.[8]
Thorne is known for his ability to convey the excitement and significance of discoveries in gravitation and astrophysics to both professional and lay audiences. His presentations on subjects such asblack holes,gravitational radiation,relativity,time travel, andwormholes have been included inPBS shows in the U.S. and on theBBC in the United Kingdom.[citation needed]
In the 2023 bookThe Warped Side of Our Universe, Thorne use poetry, and illustrations byLia Halloran, to explain scientific concepts for the reader.[20]
Thorne and Linda Jean Peterson married in 1960. Their children are Kares Anne and Bret Carter, an architect. Thorne and Peterson divorced in 1977. Thorne was set up on ablind date withLynda Obst, later afilm producer, by physicistCarl Sagan. They dated in 1979-1980, and parted and remained friends, to the extent that they later collaborated onInterstellar.[21] Thorne and his second wife, Carolee Joyce Winstein, a professor ofbiokinesiology and physical therapy atUSC, married in 1984.[22]
Thorne's research has principally focused onrelativisticastrophysics andgravitation physics, with emphasis onrelativistic stars, black holes and especiallygravitational waves.[8] He is perhaps best known to the public for his controversial theory that wormholes can conceivably be used for time travel.[23] However, Thorne's scientific contributions, which center on the general nature ofspace, time, andgravity, span the full range of topics in general relativity.
Thorne's work has dealt with the prediction of gravitational wave strengths and their temporal signatures as observed on Earth. These "signatures" are of great relevance toLIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory), a multi-institution gravitational wave experiment for which Thorne has been a leading proponent – in 1984, he cofounded the LIGO Project (the largest project ever funded by theNSF[24]) to discern and measure any fluctuations between two or more 'static' points; such fluctuations would be evidence of gravitational waves, as calculations describe. A significant aspect of his research is developing themathematics necessary to analyze these objects.[25] Thorne also carries outengineering design analyses for features of the LIGO that cannot be developed on the basis ofexperiment and he gives advice ondata analysisalgorithms by which the waves will be sought. He has provided theoretical support for LIGO, including identifying gravitational wave sources that LIGO should target, designing the baffles to controlscattered light in the LIGO beam tubes, and – in collaboration withVladimir Braginsky's (Moscow, Russia) research group – inventingquantum nondemolition designs for advanced gravity-wave detectors and ways to reduce the most serious kind ofnoise in advanced detectors:thermoelastic noise. WithCarlton M. Caves, Thorne invented the back-action-evasion approach to quantum nondemolition measurements of theharmonic oscillators – a technique applicable both in gravitational wave detection andquantum optics.[8]
On February 11, 2016, a team of four physicists[a] representing theLIGO Scientific Collaboration, announced that in September 2015, LIGO recorded the signature of two black holes colliding 1.3 billion light-years away. This recorded detection was the first direct observation of thefleeting chirp of a gravitational wave and confirmed a prediction of the general theory of relativity.[26][27][28][29][30]
While studying for his PhD at Princeton University, his mentorJohn Wheeler assigned him a problem to think about: find out whether or not a cylindrical bundle of repulsive magnetic field lines will implode under its own attractive gravitational force. After several months wrestling with the problem, he proved that it was impossible for cylindricalmagnetic field lines toimplode.[31]: 262–265
Why won't a cylindrical bundle of magnetic field lines implode, while spherical starswill implode under their own gravitational force? Thorne tried to explore the theoretical ridge between these two phenomena. He eventually determined that the gravitational force can overcome all interior pressure only when an object has been compressed in all directions. To express this realization, Thorne proposed hishoop conjecture, which describes an imploding star turning into a black hole when the critical circumference of the designed hoop can be placed around it and set into rotation. That is, any object of mass M around which a hoop of circumference can be spun must be a black hole.[31]: 266–267 [32]: 189–190
As a tool to be used in both enterprises — astrophysics and theoretical physics — Thorne and his students have developed an unusual approach, called the "membrane paradigm", to the theory of black holes and used it to clarify theBlandford–Znajek mechanism by which black holes may power somequasars andactive galactic nuclei.[31]: 405–411
Thorne has investigated thequantumstatistical mechanical origin of theentropy of a black hole. With hispostdoc Wojciech Zurek, he showed that the entropy of a black hole is thelogarithm of the number of ways that the hole could have been made.[31]: 445–446
WithIgor Novikov andDon Page, he developed the general relativistic theory of thinaccretion disks around black holes, and using this theory he deduced that with a doubling of its mass by suchaccretion a black hole will be spun up to 0.998 of the maximumspin allowed by general relativity, but not any farther. This is probably the maximum black-hole spin allowed in nature.[8]
A wormhole is a short cut connecting two separate regions in space. In the figure the green line shows the short way through wormhole, and the red line shows the long way through normal space.
WithMike Morris andUlvi Yurtsever, he showed that traversable wormholes can exist in the structure ofspacetime only if they are threaded by quantum fields inquantum states that violate theaveraged null energy condition (i.e. have negative renormalized energy spread over a sufficiently large region).[35] This has triggered research to explore the ability of quantum fields to possess such extendednegative energy. Recent calculations by Thorne indicate that simple masses passing through traversable wormholes could never engenderparadoxes – there areno initial conditions that lead to paradox once time travel is introduced. If his results can be generalized, they would suggest that none of the supposed paradoxes formulated in time travel stories can actually be formulated at a precise physical level: that is, thatany situation in a time travel story turns out to permitmany consistent solutions.[citation needed]
Relativistic stars, multipole moments and other endeavors
WithAnna Żytkow, Thorne predicted the existence ofred supergiant stars withneutron-star cores (Thorne–Żytkow objects).[36] He laid the foundations for the theory ofpulsations of relativistic stars and the gravitational radiation they emit. WithJames Hartle, Thorne derived from general relativity the laws of motion and precession of black holes and other relativistic bodies, including the influence of the coupling of theirmultipole moments to the spacetime curvature of nearby objects,[37] as well as writing down theHartle-Thorne metric, an approximate solution which describes the exterior of a slowly and rigidly rotating, stationary and axially symmetric body.
Thorne has also theoretically predicted the existence of universally antigravitating "exotic matter" – the element needed to accelerate the expansion rate of the universe, keep traversable wormhole "Star Gates" open and keeptimelikegeodesic free float "warp drives" working. With Clifford Will[38] and others of his students, he laid the foundations for the theoretical interpretation of experimentaltests of relativistic theories of gravity – foundations on which Will and others then built. As of 2005[update], Thorne was interested in the origin of classical space and time from thequantum foam ofquantum gravity theory.[citation needed]
Thorne has written and edited books on topics in gravitational theory andhigh-energy astrophysics. In 1973, he co-authored the textbookGravitation withCharles Misner andJohn Wheeler;[39] that according toJohn C. Baez and Chris Hillman, is one of the great scientific books of all time and has inspired two generations of students.[40] In 1994, he publishedBlack Holes and Time Warps: Einstein's Outrageous Legacy, a book for non-scientists for which he received numerous awards. This book has been published in six languages, and editions in Chinese, Italian, Czech, and Polish are in press.[when?] In 2014, Thorne publishedThe Science of Interstellar in which he explains the science behind Christopher Nolan's filmInterstellar; Nolan wrote the foreword to the book. In September 2017, Thorne and Roger D. Blandford publishedModern Classical Physics: Optics, Fluids, Plasmas, Elasticity, Relativity, and Statistical Physics, a graduate-level textbook covering the six major areas of physics listed in the title.[41]
Thorne's articles have appeared in publications such as:
InLarry Niven's novelRainbow Mars, the time travel technology used in the novel is based on the wormhole theories of Thorne, which in the context of the novel was when time travel first became possible, rather than just fantasy. As a result, any attempts to travel in time prior to Thorne's development of wormhole theory results in the time traveller entering a fantastic version of reality, rather than the actual past.[62]
Misner, Charles W., Thorne, K. S. and Wheeler, John Archibald,Gravitation 1973, (W H Freeman & Co)
Thorne, K. S., in 300 Years of Gravitation, (Eds.) S. W. Hawking and W. Israel, 1987, (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press),Gravitational Radiation.
Thorne, K. S., Price, R. H. and Macdonald, DM,Black Holes, The Membrane Paradigm, 1986, (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press).
Friedman, J., Morris, MS, Novikov, I. D., Echeverria, F., Klinkhammer, G., Thorne, K. S. and Yurtsever, U., Physical Review D., 1990, (in press),Cauchy Problem inSpacetimes withClosed Timelike Curves.
Thorne, K. S. and Blandford, R. D.,Modern Classical Physics: Optics, Fluids, Plasmas, Elasticity, Relativity, and Statistical Physics, 2017, (Princeton: Princeton University Press).
^"Dr. Alison Comish Thorne".Legacy.com. The Salt Lake Tribune Obituaries. October 26, 2004. RetrievedSeptember 7, 2016.
^Rory Carroll (June 21, 2013)."Kip Thorne: physicist studying time travel tapped for Hollywood film". Guardian News and Media Limited. RetrievedOctober 30, 2014.Thorne grew up in an academic, Mormon family in Utah but is now an atheist. "There are large numbers of my finest colleagues who are quite devout and believe in God, ranging from an abstract humanist God to a very concrete Catholic or Mormon God. There is no fundamental incompatibility between science and religion. I happen to not believe in God."
^"LIGO: The Search for Gravitational Waves". National Science Foundation. Archived fromthe original on September 15, 2016. RetrievedSeptember 9, 2016.LIGO is the largest single enterprise undertaken by NSF, with capital investments of nearly $300 million and operating costs of more than $30 million/year.
^V. Frolov; I. Novikov (December 6, 2012).Black Hole Physics: Basic Concepts and New Developments. Springer Science & Business Media.ISBN978-94-011-5139-9.
^Thorne, Kip S.; Will, Clifford (1971). "Theoretical Frameworks for Testing Relativistic Gravity. I. Foundations".The Astrophysical Journal.163:595–610.Bibcode:1971ApJ...163..595T.doi:10.1086/150803.
^Misner, Charles W.; Kip S. Thorne; John Archibald Wheeler (September 1973).Gravitation. San Francisco: W. H. Freeman.ISBN0-7167-0344-0.
^"A Guide to Relativity books".John Baez, Chris Hillman. Department of Mathematics, University of California at Riverside. 1998. RetrievedJune 19, 2016.
^Kip S. Thorne and Roger D. Blandford (2017).Modern Classical Physics: Optics, Fluids, Plasmas, Elasticity, Relativity, and Statistical Physics. Princeton University Press.ISBN978-0-69115902-7.
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