|
7:30 pm, Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Fairmont Lounge, St. John's College
Black Holes
Robert Wald
University of Chicago
Black holes are regions of spacetime where gravity is so strong
that nothing---not even light---can escape. They are created by the
complete gravitational collapse of sufficiently massive bodies. The past
40 years have seen a revolution in our understanding of black holes, and
the important role they play in our universe. Most remarkable is the
relationship between certain laws applying to black holes and the ordinary
laws of thermodynamics, particularly the fact that---due to quantum
processes---black holes "emit" thermal radiation. This talk will review
some of the key features we have discovered about black holes and
describe the very deep insights that they are currently providing into the
nature of gravitation, thermodynamics, and quantum theory.
To learn more please visit his
webpage.
Additional resources for this talk: slides, video.
|