Simon Fraser University
SFU Cosmology Seminars

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Friday, 4 October 2013, 14:30 in AQ3150

Prof. Joseph Polchinski (KITP)

The black hole information paradox, alive and kicking (physics colloquium)

hought experiments have played an important role in figuring out the laws of physics. For the unification of quantum mechanics and gravity, where the phenomena take place in extreme regimes, they are even more crucial. Hawking’s 1976 paper "Breakdown of Predictability in Gravitational Collapse" presented one of the great thought experiments in the history of physics, arguing that black holes destroy information in a way that requires a modification of the laws of quantum mechanics. Skeptics for years failed to poke holes in Hawking's argument, but concluded that if quantum mechanics is to be saved then our understanding of spacetime must break down in a radical way. For a time it seemed that Maldacena's discovery of gauge/gravity duality had resolved the issue, but recent developments have opened many new questions.

Seminars in 2013:

2013-09-10 14:00 in P8445B - Andrei Frolov (SFU): Intermittent non-Gaussianity
2013-09-20 14:30 in AQ3150 - Christopher Stubbs (Harvard University): The dark energy crisis in the longer term (physics colloquium)
2013-10-01 14:00 in P8445B - Ali Narimani (UBC): Minimal parameterizations for modified gravity
2013-10-04 14:30 in AQ3150 - Joseph Polchinski (KITP): The black hole information paradox, alive and kicking (physics colloquium)
2013-10-08 14:00 in P8445B - Yin-Zhe Ma (UBC): Cosmic peculiar velocity field
2013-10-22 14:00 in P8445B - Alireza Hojjati (SFU): Cosmology with strong lensing time delays
2013-10-29 14:00 in P8445B - Levon Pogosian (SFU): Primordial magnetism in CMB polarization
2013-11-01 14:30 in AQ3150 - Neil Turok (Perimeter Institute): On quantum tunnelling (physics colloquium)
2013-11-12 14:00 in P8445B - Jun-Qi Guo (SFU): Spherical collapse in f(R) gravity
2013-11-19 14:00 in P8445B - Jes Ford (UBC): Weighing galaxy clusters with weak lensing magnification
2014-01-28 14:00 in P8445B - Ivan Agullo (Louisiana State University): Conformal anomaly and primordial magnetic fields
2014-03-04 14:00 in P8445B - Thomas Kephart (Vanderbilt University): Helicity conservation and generalized Beltrami fields
2014-04-08 14:00 in P8445B - Zhiqi Huang (CITA, University of Toronto): Inflation trajectories after Planck and BICEP2
2014-05-06 16:00 in Saywell 10081 - Rocky Kolb (University of Chicago): The Quantum and the Cosmos (public lecture)
2014-08-15 14:00 in P8445B - Dmitri Pogosyan (University of Alberta): Topology of the Universe from Planck CMB data

[ See complete seminar archives | iCal feed ]

Modified by Andrei Frolov <frolov@sfu.ca> on 2023-11-01