March 16th, 2021 - 5:00 pm
Science and Society | The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself
Tuesday, March 16 | 5:00 PM Eastern Time
Join us for a conversation with Sean Caroll, author of The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself.
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. Dr. Carroll 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.
Sean Carroll is a Research Professor of theoretical physics at the California Institute of Technology and External Professor at the Santa Fe Institute. 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 several books, most recently Something Deeply Hidden: Quantum Worlds and the Emergence of Spacetime. 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, the Guggenheim Foundation, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He is the host of the weekly Mindscape podcast.