I am Homewood Professor of Natural Philosophy at Johns Hopkins University, as well as Fractal Faculty at the Santa Fe Institute. This blog is part of my larger web site.
With my physicist hat on, I’m a theorist who thinks about the fundamental laws of nature, and these days about philosophy and the foundations of physics. Some of my work has been on violations of fundamental symmetries, the physics of dark energy, modifications of general relativity, and the arrow of time. Recently I’ve been focusing on issues at the foundations of cosmology, statistical mechanics, quantum mechanics, and complexity. My CV has links to all my research papers.
Other hats, summarized at my activities page, include writer, speaker, and thinker about things I’m not really credentialed to think about. I’m the author of seven books:
- Spacetime and Geometry
- From Eternity to Here
- The Particle at the End of the Universe
- The Big Picture
- Something Deeply Hidden
- The Biggest Ideas in the Universe: Space, Time, and Motion
- The Biggest Ideas in the Universe: Quanta and Fields
and four sets of lectures from The Great Courses:
- Dark Matter and Dark Energy
- Mysteries of Modern Physics: Time
- The Higgs Boson and Beyond
- The Many Hidden Worlds of Quantum Mechanics
My avocational intellectual interests include a number of philosophical topics, largely under the rubric of naturalism. I sometimes act as a science consultant for movies and TV shows, and have been known to play poker when the opportunity arises.
I live in Baltimore with my lovely wife, Jennifer Ouellette, who is a writer learning science instead of a scientist learning how to write. We’re symbiotic.
For contact info and other details, see the bottom of my personal page.
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Could professor Carroll explain what he meant by “Our metaphysics must follow our physics.”
John Wires
Dear Sean Carroll,
I would like to tell you that I have liked your https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/blog/2015/10/13/the-universe-never-expands-faster-than-the-speed-of-light/ post.
I have linked it on my own webpage at http://ilja-schmelzer.de/gravity/inflation.php which extends the criticism of pop-science presentations of inflation. If you have any comments about this, it would be nice to hear from you.
Sincerely yours,
Ilja Schmelzer
After you were on Coast to Coast, George Noory has been trashing you for being an atheist and not believing in an afterlife. I think it’s unfair because he’s judging you for your beliefs and saying crap behind your back to other guests.
Hi Sean
I listen to your lectures. You have a tone and a sense of reason that is reassuring, particularly in this day and age of divisiveness;
I found this book written by a neurophilosopher (I did not know this area of discipline existed). I don’t doubt you’ve heard of it or that you’ve read it – but on the chance you have not, I’m sending you a link from CBC news in Canada in which they give a brief overview. You have touched on the subject of moralism – and that it’s not exclusive to people of religious leanings.
Have a great day.
Jim
New Westminster, B.C.
Dr. Carroll
I am a retired high school physics teacher. One of my great joys was teaching a section on special relativity to my AP physics classes. The approach I used was to begin with a classical view of space and time adding in the constancy of the speed of light to arrive at the precepts of special relativity. That is why I was intrigued by your 6th video of the “Biggest Ideas in the Universe” series. Is there a source that gives a complete treatment of special relativity beginning with spacetime.
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