Just a brief note, in a very busy period, to alert those in the Providence, RI area that I’ll be giving a colloquium talk at the Brown University Physics Department on Monday November 18th at 4pm. Such talks are open to the public, but are geared toward people who’ve had at least one full year of physics somewhere in their education. The title is “Exploring The Foundations of our Quantum Cosmos”. Here’s a summary of what I intend to talk about:
The discovery of the Higgs boson in 2012 marked a major milestone in our understanding of the universe, and a watershed for particle physics as a discipline. What’s known about particles and fields now forms a nearly complete short story, an astonishing, counterintuitive tale of relativity and quantum physics. But it sits within a larger narrative that is riddled with unanswered questions, suggesting numerous avenues of future research into the nature of spacetime and its many fields. I’ll discuss both the science and the challenges of accurately conveying its lessons to other scientists, to students, and to the wider public.
2 Responses
I’d love to hear the talk but that’s a two hour drive (4 hr round trip) from New Hampshire. Is there any chance I could get a copy of your presentation slides? Thanks, Bill
Unfortunately none of my previous colloquium talks on this subject have been recorded, nor will this one be. And the slides by themselves would not be useful; they have animations and I say lots of things that aren’t on the slides. Hopefully I’ll be invited to give this talk elsewhere, and some school will record it (without requiring me to sign a waiver giving them infinite rights to use my talk however they might please until the end of time.)
You do know about my other public talks and my podcast appearances, yes?
https://www.youtube.com/@MattStrassler/playlists