Sean Carroll: Exploring Quanta and Fields

Ready for an adventure into the “bare stuff of reality”?
Join us for a special online program when theoretical physicist Sean Carroll returns to the Club on the occasion of the publication of his new book Quanta and Fields, the second book of his internationally acclaimed series The Biggest Ideas in the Universe. Quantum field theory is how modern physics describes nature at its most profound level. Starting with the basics of quantum mechanics itself, Carroll explains measurement and entanglement before explaining how the world is really made of fields.
Why is matter solid? Why is there antimatter? Where do the sizes of atoms come from? And why are the predictions of quantum field theory so spectacularly successful? Carroll explains fundamental ideas like spin, symmetry, Feynman diagrams, and the Higgs mechanism are explained.
Sean Carroll is creating a new approach to sharing physics with a broad audience, one that goes beyond analogies to show how physicists really think. He cuts to the bare mathematical essence of our most profound theories, explaining every step in a uniquely accessible way.
In association with Wonderfest.
Photo by Jennifer Ouellette.
May 14, 2024
Speakers
Sean Carroll
Homewood Professor Natural Philosophy, John Hopkins University, Fractal Faculty, the Santa Fe Institute; Author, Quanta and Fields: The Biggest Ideas in the Universe
In Conversation with George Hammond
Chair, Humanities Member-led Forum, Commonwealth Club World Affairs
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