December 30, 2024: Sean Carroll

So many of us are curious about the stuff of space and time and the forces that bind us all together. Author and physicist Sean Caroll wants to encourage that curiosity, and believes physics can be accessible to everyone.

Carroll is the Homewood Professor of Natural Philosophy, a joint appointment between physics and philosophy at Johns Hopkins University and fractal faculty at the Santa Fe Institute. He has focused his research on cosmology, field theory, and gravitation, looking at topics such as dark matter and dark energy, modified gravity, topological defects, extra dimensions, and violations of fundamental symmetries. He has shifted his focus to foundational questions, both in quantum mechanics—origin of probability, emergence of space and time—and statistical mechanics—entropy and the arrow of time, emergence and causation, dynamics of complexity, all while bringing a more philosophical dimension to this work. Carroll is the author of several books, including, “The Biggest Ideas in the Universe: Space, Time, and Motion,” “Something Deeply Hidden: Quantum Worlds and the Emergence of Spacetime,” and its second volume, “Quanta and Fields: The Biggest Ideas in the Universe.” He hosts the “Mindscape” podcast, featuring conversations with accomplished guests on new ideas in science, philosophy, culture, and the arts. Carroll was named a Guggenheim Fellow in 2015.