On April 16th, Kelly Holley-Bockelmann walked onto the TEDx stage in Nashville to talk about what she calls 鈥渢he greatest, most profound discovery of our generation鈥� 鈥� the first detection of gravitational waves last September 鈥� and walked off the stage to a standing ovation.
In her talk, 鈥淪pacetime Symphony of Gravitational Waves,鈥� the associate professor of astrophysics at Vanderbilt admits that she and her colleagues cried when they heard the news. Wearing a dress inspired by the detection, what she calls 鈥渢he ‘it’ dress for lady astrophysicists,鈥� she explains why the gravitational wave detection is 鈥渁 paradigm-shifting discovery.” She also leads the audience in a dance to explain how the LIGO detector responds to a gravitational wave passing through the Earth.
