An exclusive interview with Nobel laureate Kip Thorne by Science & Cocktails. Kip Stephen Thorne (born June 1, 1940) is an American theoretical physicist and Nobel laureate, known for his contributions in gravitational physics and astrophysics. A longtime friend and colleague of Stephen Hawking and Carl Sagan, he was the Feynman Professor of Theoretical Physics at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) until 2009 and is one of the world's leading experts on the astrophysical implications of Einstein's general theory of relativity. Kip Thorne was awarded with the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2017 together with Rainer Weiss and Barry C. Barish for decisive contributions to the LIGO detector and the observation of gravitational waves.