Guest Lecturer: Sean Carroll

Title: "Our Place in the Universe: Why We're Here and What It All Means"

Abstract: Human beings are made from the same particles and forces that make up rocks and rivers and planets. But the world as described by science, from quantum uncertainty to the genetic code and the expansion of the universe, can seem exotic and alien to us. I will talk about how our human-sized world fits into the bigger picture defined by the underlying laws of nature -- in particular, how our impressions of cause and effect and the appearance of complex structures can be traced to special conditions near the Big Bang -- and what it implies for meaning and mattering in the universe.

Biography: Sean Carroll is a Research Professor of theoretical physics at the California Institute of Technology. He received his Ph.D. in 1993 from Harvard University. His research focuses on fundamental physics and cosmology, quantum gravity and spacetime, and the evolution of entropy and complexity. He is the author of The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself; The Particle at the End of the Universe: How the Hunt for the Higgs Boson Leads Us to the Edge of a New World; From Eternity to Here: The Quest for the Ultimate Theory of Time; and the textbook Spacetime and Geometry: An Introduction to General Relativity. He has been awarded prizes and fellowships by the National Science Foundation, NASA, the Sloan Foundation, the Packard Foundation, the American Physical Society, the American Institute of Physics, the Royal Society of London, and the Guggenheim Foundation. He frequently consults for film and television, and has been featured on shows such as The Colbert Report, PBS’s NOVA, and Through the Wormhole with Morgan Freeman.

Date: February 1st, 2017

Time: 7:00 PM

Where: Neeb Hall on ASU Tempe campus| Click HERE for a map of ASU.

Cost: Free & open to the public

Questions: Please feel free to contact us via email at deepthought@asu.edu or by calling us at 480-965-3860.