Join us with Anthony Aguirre, PhD on Thursday, May 20th at 5:00pm (PDT) talking about modern cosmology.
The physical universe, I will argue, is made of matter (or energy) and of order (or information). I'll trace out the 13.8 billion year history of this matter/energy told by modern cosmology, as it has developed into ever-more sophisticated order and structure: galaxies and their arrangement, stars, planets, life, and very recently and locally, civilization. The survival of civilization—and life itself—through the coming century is not assured, but if it continues, what could its future look like over thousands or millions of years? No one knows, but touring topics from fundamental physics to the nature of intelligence, I will lay out some of the possibilities.
Anthony Aguirre, PhD
Anthony Aguirre received a degree in mathematics and physics from Brown University, and earned his Ph.D. in Astronomy from Harvard University before joining the UC Santa Cruz faculty in 2003. He holds the Faggin Family Presidential Chair for the Physics of Information at UCSC. His research addresses a variety of topics in theoretical cosmology, including the early universe and inflation, gravity physics, and the foundations of quantum and statistical mechanics. He co-created the Foundational Questions Institute and co-founded the Future of Life Institute.
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Building on its great success outside the United States, Café Scientifique Silicon Valley is the first such Café on the West Coast. We meet monthly to discuss a variety of science topics.