Black holes are extraordinary and may even hold the key to unlocking the next phase in our understanding of the laws of physics. Watch the Q&A here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GZRt8kIdVE Subscribe for regular science videos: http://bit.ly/RiSubscRibe Black holes are amongst the most extraordinary objects that are known to exist in the universe. Jerome Gauntlett will discuss their fascinating properties and describe the dramatic recent observations of black holes using gravitational waves. He will also explain why it is believed that black holes hold the key to unlocking the next level of our understanding of the fundamental laws of physics. Jerome Gauntlett is a professor of theoretical physics at Imperial College. His principal research interests are focussed on string theory, quantum field theory and black holes. Most recently he has been investigating whether string theory techniques can be used to study exotic states of matter that arise in condensed matter physics. He was Head of the Theoretical Physics Group at Imperial from 2011-2016. He was the theoretical physics consultant for the film The Theory of Everything and he has an Erdos-Bacon number of six (having written a paper with Shing-Tung Yau and appeared in the film Windrider with Nicole Kidman). The Ri is on Twitter: http://twitter.com/ri_science and Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/royalinstitution and Tumblr: http://ri-science.tumblr.com/ Our editorial policy: http://rigb.org/home/editorial-policy Subscribe for the latest science videos: http://bit.ly/RiNewsletter