Kip Thorne

Kip S. Thorne, the Richard P. Feynman Professor of Theoretical Physics, Emeritus, at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), is a leading figure in Space Science whose research has profoundly shaped gravitational physics and astrophysics. Born in Logan, Utah, in 1940, he earned his B.S. in Physics from Caltech in 1962 and his Ph.D. in Physics from Princeton University in 1965. After postdoctoral positions at Princeton and as Research Fellow at Caltech (1966-1967), he joined Caltech's faculty as Associate Professor of Theoretical Physics in 1967, was promoted to Professor in 1970, named William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor in 1981, and appointed Feynman Professor in 1991. In 2009, he retired from the active Feynman Professorship to pursue writing, science-art collaborations, and research while retaining emeritus status.

Thorne's academic interests center on gravitational physics and astrophysics, including relativistic stars, black holes, wormholes, and gravitational waves. From the late 1960s, he and his group advanced gravitational wave theory, generation techniques, and detection strategies. In 1984, with Rainer Weiss and Ronald Drever, he co-founded the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO), providing theoretical foundations for source identification, data analysis, noise control, and black hole collision simulations via the SXS project. These efforts culminated in LIGO's 2015 detection of gravitational waves. For his LIGO contributions, Thorne shared the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics with Weiss and Barry Barish, alongside the 2016 Kavli Prize in Astrophysics, Gruber Cosmology Prize, Shaw Prize in Astronomy, Special Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics, and others. Key publications include the textbook Gravitation (1973, co-authored with Charles W. Misner and John A. Wheeler), Black Holes and Time Warps: Einstein's Outrageous Legacy (1994), The Science of Interstellar (2014), and Modern Classical Physics (2017, with Roger Blandford). He mentored 52 Ph.D. physicists, served as LIGO steering committee chair (1984-1987), and contributed to committees like the International Committee on General Relativity and Gravitation. Thorne's influence extends to public outreach through lectures, films like Interstellar (executive producer and science advisor), and spacetime visualization tools such as frame-drag vortex lines and tidal tendex lines.

Professional Email: kip@caltech.edu