Return to Colloquia & Seminar listing
Strings and M-Theory: From Quantum Gravity to Quantum Geometry and Back
Colloquium| Speaker: | Petr Horava, UC Berkeley |
| Location: | 693 Kerr |
| Start time: | Mon, Dec 2 2002, 4:10PM |
Recent successes and challenges of string theory are highlighted, with an emphasis on how our attempts to answer the pressing theoretical physics questions of the unified theory of all interactions (including a quantum theory of gravity) inspire the evolution of new mathematical concepts, and in turn get inspired by new (and sometimes not so new) mathematics. While much of the exciting progress in string theory has been achieved under the control of supersymmetry, any future success depends on our ability to understand string theory in the cosmological context, where spacetime supersymmetry is absent or at least far from manifest.
There will be a dinner afterwards.