In this episode of pplpod, we explore the life and mind of Kip Thorne, the celebrated American theoretical physicist who has bridged the gap between hard science and Hollywood,. We discuss his monumental achievement in winning the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics, alongside Rainer Weiss and Barry C. Barish, for their contributions to the LIGO detector and the historic direct observation of gravitational waves—ripples in spacetime caused by colliding black holes,.

Join us as we break down Thorne’s complex research into the "warped side" of the universe, including:

• Black Hole Cosmology: His formulation of the "hoop conjecture," which defines the conditions necessary for an imploding star to become a black hole, and his work on the "membrane paradigm",.
• Time Travel & Wormholes: His famous—and controversial—scientific investigation into whether the laws of physics allow for traversable wormholes and time machines, a field he pioneered with students and colleagues at Caltech,.
• Hollywood Consulting: How Thorne brought accurate physics to pop culture, serving as a scientific consultant for Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar and Tenet, and advising Carl Sagan on wormhole travel for the novel Contact,.

We also touch on his personal journey, from his upbringing in an academic Mormon family in Logan, Utah, to his resignation from the Feynman Professorship to pursue writing and filmmaking,. Whether you are interested in the mathematics of relativistic stars or the science behind your favorite sci-fi films, this episode illuminates the career of a physicist who changed how we hear the universe.