Event

The Center for Particle Cosmology welcomes Sean Carroll, this year's speaker. 

One of the great intellectual achievements of the twentieth century was the theory of quantum mechanics, according to which observational results can only be predicted probabilistically rather than with certainty. Yet, after decades in which the theory has been successfully used on an everyday basis, most physicists would agree that we still don't truly understand what it means. I will talk about the source of this puzzlement, and explain why an increasing number of physicists are led to an apparently astonishing conclusion: that the world we experience is constantly branching into dierent versions, representing the dierent possible outcomes of quantum measurements. This could have important consequences for quantum gravity and the emergence of spacetime. 

This event is co-hosted with the Department of Physics and Astronomy. 

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The Elon Musk Public Lecture is made possible through a generous endowment gifted to the Center for Particle Cosmology in 2009—its inaugural year. Mr. Musk is an alumnus of the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Penn, and a proud advocate for the preparation that a physics education provides in many different careers. The Musk lecture brings world-renowned scientists in the areas of particle physics and cosmology to Penn to share their knowledge and vision with the broader Philadelphia community.