Welcome to the latest season of State Press Play with our new hosts Amber Victoria Singer and Gabriella Fernbaugh. This week, we hear from State Press reporters about weekend art and culture events that Sun Devils can attend. Plus, we receive an inside look at ASU's decision to move to the Big 12 next season, as well as their self-imposed bowl ban. We also had the pleasure of learning a little bit more about a recent astrophysics discovery regarding gravitational waves.
State Press podcast transcripts are produced by a third-party transcription service and may contain errors. The official record for State Press podcasts is the audio. Please listen to the audio as this transcript may only contain summary forms of the given episode.
Gabriella Fernbaugh:
ASU athletics is now in the Big 12 conference, meaning athletes will have to travel much farther for games.
Amber Victoria Singer:
And ASU football won't be playing in any bowls this year... by choice.
Gabriella Fernbaugh:
I'm Gabriella Fernbaugh.
Amber Victoria Singer:
And I'm Amber Victoria Singer. And this is State Press Play.
Gabriella Fernbaugh:
Also on today's episode, an ASU professor weighs in on a paper published this summer that could change the way we see the universe. But first, if you're looking for something fun to do this weekend, State Press Echo reporter Sophia Braccio has a wonderful list of art and culture events happening on and around campus in the next few days.
Amber Victoria Singer:
From new art exhibits created by ASU alumni to Tango club, the Echo has you covered.
Gabriella Fernbaugh:
Sophia, what events are you looking forward to?
Sophia Braccio:
Yeah, so one of the ones I'm really looking forward to is the Stop Making Sense exhibit. It just opened this week at the ASU Art Museum. And it's ASU students and recent alumni. And they painted in this beautiful, surrealist, very imaginative and colorful style. And the ASU Art Museum is free for students. So everyone needs to get out there and check it out...
To hear more from Braccio, please tune in to State Press Play.
READ MORE: THE ECHO ARTS ROUNDUP: AUG. 28 TO SEPT. 3
Amber Victoria Singer:
There were some big changes in ASU athletics over the summer. State Press Senior Reporter Alex Wakefield is with me now to talk about them. Hi, Alex.
Alex Wakefield:
How's it going?
Amber Victoria Singer:
So tell me about ASU's move to the Big 12.
Alex Wakefield:
Yeah, so ASU athletics kind of fundamentally changed this summer. So since 1978, ASU as well as University of Arizona, have been in the Pac-12 conference. And essentially what that means is in most sports, most of the schedule that ASU plays is against the same group of teams. Teams like University of Arizona, as well as USC and UCLA, Oregon, Stanford, etc. And the design of these conferences is to, for the most part, keep games regional, so that teams you know, have reasonable travel schedules, and that regional rivalries can develop between schools. But this summer, ASU moved conferences, moving from the Pac-12, which kind of fell apart, into the Big 12, which is a brand new set of schools, which includes schools like TCU, Oklahoma State, West Virginia, all across the American Midwest...
To hear more from Wakefield, please tune in to State Press Play.
READ MORE: BREAKING: ASU, UA LEAVING PAC-12, JOINING THE BIG 12 CONFERENCE
READ MORE: BREAKING: ASU SELF-IMPOSING ONE YEAR POSTSEASON BAN ON FOOTBALL TEAM
Gabriella Fernbaugh:
This summer, a paper was published confirming the existence of low frequency gravitational waves. It's from the North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves or NANOGrav for short.
Amber Victoria Singer:
So far, scientists have only been able to observe gravitational waves from huge space events like two black holes colliding.
Gabriella Fernbaugh:
State Press SciTech reporter and aerospace engineering major Ritwik Sharma is with us to explain more. And Ritwik, what exactly is a gravitational wave?
Ritwik Sharma:
These gravitational waves, they're basically like invisible ripples in the fabric of the universe that are just created by moving objects. And if you're having a hard time visualizing it, the best way to understand it is the universe is a lake and say some object like say our Earth is a rock. Now, in this lake, the rock, Earth, is rotating and moving around the sun. Now, the rock's motion will generate waves. Those waves are basically gravitational waves. And these waves travel for eternity, basically, because they exist in the universe. And as far as we know, there isn't really a medium to hinder those waves from going as far as they can go...
To hear more from Sharma, please tune in to State Press Play.
READ MORE: GROUNDBREAKING DISCOVERY IN ASTROPHYSICS IS MAKING WAVES WITH ASU PROFESSORS
Gabriella Fernbaugh:
And that's all for this week's State Press Play. I'm Gabriella Fernbaugh.
Amber Victoria Singer:
And I'm Amber Victoria Singer. You can follow the State Press on X and Instagram at @statepress.
Gabriella Fernbaugh:
State Press Play is produced by our Podcast Editor Amber Victoria Singer. Our original music is by Ellie Willard and Jake Leroux.
Amber Victoria Singer:
Special thanks to our managing team, Alexis Heichman and Reece Andrews.
Gabriella Fernbaugh:
You can check out all these stories and more on statepress.com. Adios Devils!
