2015 Peterson Public Lecture
Dr. Michael Brooks
Welcome to Wonderland:
Making sense of life in a quantum universe
Monday, April 27, 2014
4:30 p.m.
Hale Library, Hemisphere Room
What we have learned about the subatomic world challenges our fundamental understanding of the cosmos. The very stuff from which we are made seems to be able to exist in two places at once, and exhibit almost telepathic connections that Einstein once dismissed as too "spooky" to be real. These discoveries are redrawing our understanding of space and time and raising questions about human free will. However, they also present new opportunities: quantum weirdness appears to explain some of nature's most baffling processes, opening up the chance to develop startling new technologies. In this lecture, Michael Brooks explores how our new view of the quantum world has shifted our perspective on the universe, and our place within it.
Michael Brooks, who holds a PhD in quantum physics, is a British author, journalist and broadcaster. He is a consultant editor at New Scientist magazine and writes a weekly column for the UK's New Statesman. He is the author of several books including At The Edge of Uncertainty, Free Radicals: The Secret Anarchy of Science and the bestselling non-fiction title 13 Things That Don't Make Sense.