Black Holes and the Structure of Spacetime
October 2, 2018 - 4:00pm
Speaker:
Juan Maldacena
Institution:
Institute for Advanced Study (IAS), Princeton
Prange Prize Lecture
Black holes are fascinating objects predicted by Einstein's theory of
general relativity.
Though they were initially viewed as pathological and unphysical
solutions, they were later understood
to be a solid and generic outcome of the theory.
They are objects where the distortion of space and time is so extreme
that it defies imagination.
Black holes give rise to paradoxes whose resolution requires us to modify
our conception of spacetime. We will review how black holes went from
being apparently unphysical solutions
to a central tool for discovering new perspectives on the nature of
spacetime.
Hosted by Sankar Das Sarma
Physics Building, Room 1412
20742