Detail ‘Molle Rudesse’. Vassily Kandinsky, 1927. Courtesy/SFI
SFI News:
The Santa Fe Institute (SFI) will host a community lecture, ‘Visions for the Future of Physics’ with John Baeat 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, May 23 at the Lensic Performing Arts Center in Santa Fe.
The 20th century was, arguably, the century of physics. While there was immense progress on so-called “fundamental physics” — the basic laws governing matter, space, and time — fundamental physics has slowed to a crawl since 1980, despite an immense amount of work.
But, as Baez will explain in this SFI Community Lecture, there is exciting progress in other branches of physics: for example, using the fundamental physics we have to design surprising new forms of matter. But, like all other sciences in the 21st century, physics must also embrace the challenges of the Anthropocene: the era in which humanity is a dominant influence on the Earth’s climate and biosphere.
Baez is an American mathematical physicist and a professor of mathematics at the University of California, Riverside (UCR). He has worked on spin foams in loop quantum gravity, applications of highest categories to physics, and applied category theory.
Baez also authored This Week’s Finds in Mathematical Physics, an irregular column on the internet featuring mathematical exposition and criticism. He started This Week’s Finds for the Usenet community, and it now has a following in its new form, the blog “Azimuth.” This Week’s Finds anticipated the concept of a personal weblog. Additionally, Baez is known on the World Wide Web as the author of the “crackpot index.”
Reserve your free tickets through The Lensic Box Office online or call 505.988.1234. Santa Fe residents are encouraged to attend in person.
This lecture will be streaming from Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube page.
This lecture is presented at no cost to the public thanks to generous sponsorship from the McKinnon Family Foundation, with additional support provided by The Lensic Performing Arts Center and the Santa Fe Reporter.
Click here for more information about SFI’s Community Lecture Series.