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Sean Carroll

Sean Carroll
George B. Field, 1929-2024 George Field, brilliant theoretical astrophysicist and truly great human being, passed away on the...
7 months ago
59
7 months ago
George Field, brilliant theoretical astrophysicist and truly great human being, passed away on the morning of July 31. He was my Ph.D. thesis advisor and one of my favorite people in the world. I often tell my own students that the two most important people in your life who you...
Sean Carroll
New Course: The Many Hidden Worlds of Quantum Mechanics In past years I’ve done several courses for The Great Courses/Wondrium (formerly The Teaching...
a year ago
13
a year ago
In past years I’ve done several courses for The Great Courses/Wondrium (formerly The Teaching Company): Dark Matter and Dark Energy, Mysteries of Modern Physics:Time, and The Higgs Boson and Beyond. Now I’m happy to announce a new one, The Many Hidden Worlds of Quantum Mechanics....
Sean Carroll
Thanksgiving This year we give thanks for a feature of nature that is frequently misunderstood: quanta. (We’ve...
a year ago
30
a year ago
This year we give thanks for a feature of nature that is frequently misunderstood: quanta. (We’ve previously given thanks for the Standard Model Lagrangian, Hubble’s Law, the Spin-Statistics Theorem, conservation of momentum, effective field theory, the error bar, gauge...
Sean Carroll
Proposed Closure of the Dianoia Institute at Australian Catholic University Just a few years ago, Australian Catholic University (ACU) established a new Dianoia Institute of...
a year ago
39
a year ago
Just a few years ago, Australian Catholic University (ACU) established a new Dianoia Institute of Philosophy. They recruited a number of researchers and made something of a splash, leading to a noticeable leap in ACU’s rankings in philosophy — all the way to second among Catholic...
Sean Carroll
Thanksgiving This year we give thanks for Arrow’s Impossibility Theorem. (We’ve previously given thanks for the...
over a year ago
34
over a year ago
This year we give thanks for Arrow’s Impossibility Theorem. (We’ve previously given thanks for the Standard Model Lagrangian, Hubble’s Law, the Spin-Statistics Theorem, conservation of momentum, effective field theory, the error bar, gauge symmetry, Landauer’s Principle, the...
Sean Carroll
The Biggest Ideas in the Universe: Space, Time, and Motion Just in case there are any blog readers out there who haven’t heard from other channels: I have a...
over a year ago
27
over a year ago
Just in case there are any blog readers out there who haven’t heard from other channels: I have a new book out! The Biggest Ideas in the Universe: Space, Time, and Motion is Volume One of a planned three-volume series. It grew out of the videos that I did in 2020, trying to offer...
Sean Carroll
Johns Hopkins As far as I remember, the first time I stepped onto a university campus was in junior high school,...
over a year ago
35
over a year ago
As far as I remember, the first time I stepped onto a university campus was in junior high school, when I visited Johns Hopkins for an awards ceremony for the Study of Mathematically Precocious Youth. (I grew up in an environment that didn’t involve spending a lot of time on...
Sean Carroll
Thanksgiving This year we give thanks for something we’ve all heard of, but maybe don’t appreciate as much as we...
over a year ago
25
over a year ago
This year we give thanks for something we’ve all heard of, but maybe don’t appreciate as much as we should: electromagnetism. (We’ve previously given thanks for the Standard Model Lagrangian, Hubble’s Law, the Spin-Statistics Theorem, conservation of momentum, effective field...
Sean Carroll
The Zombie Argument for Physicalism (Contra Panpsychism) The nature of consciousness remains a contentious subject out there. I’m a physicalist myself — as I...
over a year ago
24
over a year ago
The nature of consciousness remains a contentious subject out there. I’m a physicalist myself — as I explain in The Big Picture and elsewhere, I think consciousness is best understood as weakly-emergent from the ordinary physical behavior of matter, without requiring any special...
Sean Carroll
Energy Conservation and Non-Conservation in Quantum Mechanics Conservation of energy is a somewhat sacred principle in physics, though it can be tricky in certain...
over a year ago
28
over a year ago
Conservation of energy is a somewhat sacred principle in physics, though it can be tricky in certain circumstances, such as an expanding universe. Quantum mechanics is another context in which energy conservation is a subtle thing — so much so that it’s still worth writing papers...
Sean Carroll
Thanksgiving This year we give thanks for one of the very few clues we have to the quantum nature of spacetime:...
over a year ago
29
over a year ago
This year we give thanks for one of the very few clues we have to the quantum nature of spacetime: black hole entropy. (We’ve previously given thanks for the Standard Model Lagrangian, Hubble’s Law, the Spin-Statistics Theorem, conservation of momentum, effective field theory,...
Sean Carroll
What I Look for in Podcast Guests People often suggest guests to appear on Mindscape — which I very much appreciate! Several of my...
over a year ago
43
over a year ago
People often suggest guests to appear on Mindscape — which I very much appreciate! Several of my best conversations were with people I had never heard of before they were effectively suggested by someone. Suggestions could be made here (in comments below), or on the subreddit, or...
Sean Carroll
The Biggest Ideas in the Universe | 24. Science For the triumphant final video in the Biggest Ideas series, we look at a big idea indeed: Science....
over a year ago
29
over a year ago
For the triumphant final video in the Biggest Ideas series, we look at a big idea indeed: Science. What is science, and why is it so great? And I also take the opportunity to dip a toe into the current state of fundamental physics — are predictions that unobservable universes...
Sean Carroll
The Biggest Ideas in the Universe | 23. Criticality and Complexity Spherical cows are important because they let us abstract away all the complications of the real...
over a year ago
52
over a year ago
Spherical cows are important because they let us abstract away all the complications of the real world and think about underlying principles. But what about when the complications are the point? Then we enter the realm of complex systems — which, interestingly, has its own...