Ehrenfest Colloqium: Wednesday September 16 Title: "The Warped Side of the Universe" There is a "warped side" to our Universe, consisting of objects and phenomena that are made solely or largely from warped spacetime. Examples are black holes, singularities (inside black holes and in the big bang), and cosmic strings. Numerical-relativity simulations are revolutionizing our understanding of what _could_ exist on our Universe's Warped Side; and gravitational-wave observations (LIGO, LISA, Pulsar Timing Arrays) will soon reveal what phenomena actually _do_ exist on the Warped Side, and how they behave. ****************************** The Course of Lectures Fridays: 18 Sept, 25 Sept, 2 Oct Title: "Gravitational Waves" During the coming decade, the gravitational-wave window onto the Universe is likely to be opened, in four different frequency bands: * high frequencies (10 Hz to 10 kHz) with earth-based interferometers and resonant bars * low frequencies (0.1 mHz to 100 mHz) with space-based interferometers * very low frequencies (0.001 microHz to 1 microHz) with pulsar timing arrays * extremely low frequencies (10^-18 Hz to 10^-16 Hz) with polarization of the cosmic microwave background radiation. In this series of lectures, professor Thorne will present a pedagogical introduction to this new field of science. Lecture 1: The physics of gravitational waves and their generation Lecture 2: Astrophysical and cosmological sources of gravitational waves, and the information the waves carry Lecture 3: Gravitational wave detection: methods, status and plans