CMA Presents "The Origin of the Universe and the Arrow of Time"

One of the most obvious facts about the universe is that the past is different from the future. We can remember yesterday, but not tomorrow; we can turn an egg into an omelet, but can't turn an omelet into an egg. That's the arrow of time, which is consistent throughout the observable universe. The arrow can be explained by assuming that the very early universe was extremely orderly, and disorder has been increasing ever since. But why did the universe start out so orderly? Join us as Sean Carroll discusses the nature of time, the origin of entropy, and how what happened before the Big Bang may be responsible for the arrow of time we observe today.

Sean Carroll is a theoretical physicist at Caltech who has won fellowships from the Sloan and Packard Foundations, NASA, and the National Science Foundation. He received his Ph.D. from Harvard in 1993 and worked at MIT, the Institute for Theoretical Physics at UC Santa Barbara, and the University of Chicago before coming to Caltech. His research involves theoretical physics and astrophysics, focusing on issues in cosmology, field theory, and gravitation. His most recent book, From Eternity to Here: The Quest for the Ultimate Theory of Time, received a starred review from Publishers Weekly.

This event is free. All members of the Campus and JPL communities and retirees are welcome.