About Sean

roys-sm

Department of Physics and Astronomy

and Department of Philosophy

Johns Hopkins University

and

Santa Fe Institute

I'm the Homewood Professor of Natural Philosophy -- in effect, a joint appointment between physics and philosophy -- at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, and fractal faculty at the Santa Fe Institute. Most of my career has been spent doing 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. These days my focus has shifted to more 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), bringing a more philosophical dimension to my work. See my research page or annotated publications for more details.

For some biographical background, I did an oral history interview for the American Institute of Physics. You can see the transcript or the audio version. I also wrote a personal narrative as part of applying for a Guggenheim fellowship.

I've written a few books, both popular-level and textbook-level. My most recent is The Biggest Ideas in the Universe: Space, Time, and Motion, the first volume in a planned three-book series. Something Deeply Hidden: Quantum Worlds and the Emergence of Spacetime. I've also done a few lecture courses for The Great Courses, and there is various video and audio evidence online of me talking about one thing or another, including a series on The Biggest Ideas in the Universe. My podcast, Mindscape, features me conversing with smart people about interesting ideas in science, philosophy, culture, and the arts.

In addition to theoretical physics and book-writing, there are a bunch of other things I'm interested in, somewhat haphazardly collected on my activities page. I give talks, organize conferences, write in a number of modes, and do science consulting for film and television.

In the picture on the upper left I'm joined by my lovely wife Jennifer Ouellette. That photo was taken in Downtown LA by my Mom; the one of me on the front page is by Rachael Porter. The clock image in the background is by Mararie on Flickr. Website design by Digital Executrix.

Stuffy Official Bio

Sean Carroll is Homewood Professor of Natural Philosophy at Johns Hopkins University, and Fractal Faculty at the Santa Fe Institute. He received his Ph.D. in 1993 from Harvard University. His research focuses on foundational questions in quantum mechanics, spacetime, cosmology, emergence, entropy, and complexity, occasionally touching on issues of dark matter, dark energy, symmetry, and the origin of the universe. Carroll is the author of The Biggest Ideas in the Universe, Something Deeply Hidden, The Big Picture, The Particle at the End of the Universe, From Eternity to Here, and Spacetime and Geometry: An Introduction to General Relativity. He has been awarded prizes and fellowships by the National Science Foundation, NASA, the Sloan Foundation, the Packard Foundation, the American Physical Society, the American Institute of Physics, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Freedom From Religion Foundation, the Royal Society of London, and the Guggenheim Foundation. Carroll has appeared on TV shows such as The Colbert Report, PBS's NOVA, and Through the Wormhole with Morgan Freeman, and frequently serves as a science consultant for film and television. He is host of the weekly Mindscape podcast. He lives in Baltimore with his wife, writer Jennifer Ouellette.

Papers

Here are some representative research papers:

Plenty more listed on my CV, at inSPIRE, or Google Scholar.

My Worldline

From 2006 to 2022 I was a research professor at the Walter Burke Institute for Theoretical Physics at the California Institute of Technology.  Before that I was on the faculty of the Physics Department and Enrico Fermi Institute of the University of Chicago, and before that I was a postdoc at the Institute for Theoretical Physics at the University of California in Santa Barbara, a postdoc at the Center for Theoretical Physics at MIT, a graduate student at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, and an undergraduate at the Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics at Villanova University. Before even that I attended Pennsbury High School, where my partner Bill Koehler and I came in second place in the state debate championships on a highly controversial 3-2 decision. Still haven't quite gotten over that.

To figure out where I might be in the future, check my schedule under news.

Genealogy

My Ph.D. advisor was George Field, whose advisor was Lyman Spitzer, whose advisor was Henry Norris Russell, whose advisor was Charles Augustus Young. As far as we know, Young never actually received the Ph.D., so the line stops there. Famous academic relatives include cousin Bob Kirshner (whose advisor was Bev Oke, whose advisor was Spitzer) and grand-uncle Harlow Shapley (whose advisor was Russell). I've supervised or co-supervised numerous graduate, undergraduate, and visiting students; my official Ph.D. advisees include Mark Hoffman, Eugene Lim, Jennifer Chen, Ignacy Sawicki, Lotty Ackerman, Heywood Tam, Chien-Yao Tseng, Kimberly Boddy, Jason Pollack, Grant Remmen, Aidan Chatwin-Davies, ChunJun (Charles) Cao, and Ashmeet Singh.

Collaborators

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