Episode
Black holes, dark stars and gravitational waves: Ulrich Sperhake and Seppe Staelens
- Podcast
- Voices of Mathematics
- Published
- Mar 11, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 2512
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Summary
Welcome to Voices of Mathematics, a podcast from the Mathematics Faculty at the University of Cambridge. From number theory and geometry to cosmology and quantum physics, join us to explore topics across pure and applied mathematics, mathematical statistics and theoretical physics. In this episode we talk to two members of the Stephen Hawking Centre for Theoretical Cosmology in the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics. Ulrich Sperhake, Professor of Theoretical Physics, and graduate student Seppe Staelens discuss their fascinating research. Gravitational waves, whose discovery was announced ten years ago, have provided a wealth of information about what physicists believe are black holes. But could other objects be hiding in this data too? "Gravitational wave signals are like fingerprints," says Sperhake. "You and I have similar fingerprints, but they are not the same. Similarly, subtle differences allow us to tell from an observed gravitational wave the properties of the black holes, or neutron stars, that emitted it." Because gravitational waves carry the imprint of the objects that caused them, they have given us a new tool for observing the Universe. And in the ten years since the first detection we have learnt a lot. Gravitational waves have given us the first observational evidence for the existence of black hole binaries, for example, and they have helped to survey the population of black holes that are out there. But at the same time, physicists have been caught in a kind of trap. When they identify an object or event on the basis of its gravitational wave fingerprint, it's like the police matching a fingerprint found at a crime scene to one found in the police database. However, the person who left their fingerprint at the crime scene might…