Fall Arts Celebration welcomes "Interstellar" producer

The 2014 film, “Interstellar,” explores the idea of traveling across different galaxies via wormholes in space. This is a familiar topic for this year’s Grand Valley State University Fall Arts Celebration Distinguished Academic Lecturer, Kip Thorne.

The theoretical physicist and Einstein Medal winner served as an executive producer for “Interstellar” and co-authored The Science of Interstellar, which explores the physics behind the movie. Thorne was tapped to collaborate on the film because of his past research regarding Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity, as well as astrophysics with an emphasis on wormholes, time travel, relativistic stars, black holes and gravitational waves. 

Thorne’s lecture at Grand Valley will discuss the marriage of visual arts and scientific discovery. 

“Bringing together the visual arts with cutting-edge science will raise all sorts of topics and the kinds of questions that Grand Valley’s integrative approach to liberal education is wonderfully situated to answer,” said Fred J. Antczak, dean of Grand Valley’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

Thorne will present "Discovery and Collaboration" Monday, November 16, at 7 p.m. on the 2nd floor of the L.V. Eberhard Center located on the Pew Grand Rapids Campus. Thorne's lecture will be followed by a reception.

Before collaborating on “Interstellar,” Thorne consulted on the 1997 film “Contact,” where he proposed using wormholes to connect two points in time. Thorne is an accomplished author, having written numerous articles and books, including the educational textbook Gravitation, and the award-winning book Black Holes and Time Warps: Einstein’s Outrageous Legacy, which introduces non-scientists to general relativity.

Thorne served as a faculty member at Caltech from 1967 until his retirement as The Feynman Professor of Theoretical Physics in 2009. He also cofounded the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory Project, which consists of nearly 600 researchers who directly observe and report on gravitational waves of cosmic origin.

Ahead of Thorne's lecture, Grand Valley's Physics Department will sponsor a screening of "Interstellar" Saturday, November 14, at 6 p.m. at Wealthy Theatre (1130 Wealthy St. SE) located in East Grand Rapids. The screening is free and open to the public.

All Fall Arts Celebration events are open to the public with free admission. For more information, visit www.gvsu.edu/fallarts, or call (616) 331-2185.