Kip Thorne was born in 1940 in Logan, Utah. He excelled in his studies very quickly in his life. He graduated from Caltech with a B.S. degree in 1962. He was awarded an M.A. degree in 1963 and a Ph.D. from Princeton in 1965. Thorne became a full tenured professor at Caltech in 1970. One of Thorne's greatest mentors has been John Wheeler. It was because of Wheeler that Thorne became so well known throughout the world. Thorne was even an associate professor at the University of Moscow during the late years of the Cold War. He became a good friend with prominent Soviet physicists such as Leonid Grishchuk and Vladimir Braginsky. Thorne was a Fulbright Lecturer in France. He has been awarded countless awards for his constant research efforts. He published the best selling book Black Holes & Time Warps, Einstein's Outrageous Legacy which outlines the efforts of many of his colleagues past and present. The main subjects of the book are the applications of the Theories of General and Special Relativity by the physicists of modern times. Thorne is lighthearted and has made bets with various colleagues on when certain scientific discoveries will be made. For example, he made a bet with Stephen Hawking on a certain discovery and won. He is still on the cutting edge of theoretical physics and is one of the three founders of the LIGO project. Thorne is very well liked by his students. He keeps in close contact with them daily even when he is on vacation. Thorne still lives in California with his wife and two children. Kip Thorne still is one of the most respected professors at Caltech.

Thorne's contributions to the area of physics while utilizing the concepts of relativity are many and unmatched. Thorne, along with his mentor John Wheeler, proved that it was impossible for cylindrical, magnetic field lines to implode. Thorne proposed his Hoop Conjecture that cast aside the thought of a naked singularity. The Hoop Conjecture describes an imploding star turning into a black hole when the critical circumference of the designed hoop can be placed around it and set into rotation. One of Thorne's current passions is gravitational waves. It has been proven recently that gravitational waves create ripples in space. Various events in space create a different gravitational wave signature. Classifying various types of events would be very valuable tool for physicists and astronomers alike. The project LIGO is designed to seek out and measure gravitational waves. LIGO has its origins in both MIT and Caltech around the year 1980. The three main contributors to LIGO are Kip Thorne, Ray Weiss, and Ron Drever. The actual equipment consists of an extremely large interferometer that will help to detect gravitational waves. This interferometer has two long arms that use lasers for measurement. If gravitational waves are being measured, then the interferometer should flicker due to one arm lengthening and the other contracting. This small change in length causes the waves in interferometer arms to change shape and thus not totally cancel each other out. LIGO is currently five years behind in its development, but it will be completed. Thorne and his colleagues believe that an ideal LIGO system should exist in space so as to eliminate earthbound interference. Thorne also has touched on the unproven subject of wormholes. He credits the birth of this idea to the late scientist and author Carl Sagan. This subject still lacks proof, but Thorne continues to work on it. Thorne has fully embraced the concepts of relativity and has used them successfully to determine the origins of the universe as well as the actual conditions just prior to the big bang.

Kip Thorne is one of the best physicists of the modern day. He will continue to blaze new trails for his colleagues and for future generations of physicists. He has helped to make this area of science more comprehensible.