Sean M. Carroll

This article is about the theoretical physicist. For the biologist, see Sean B. Carroll.

Sean M. Carroll
Carroll in 2017
Born
Sean Michael Carroll

(1966-10-05) October 5, 1966 (age 58)
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Education
Known forDark electromagnetism
f(R) gravity
poetic naturalism
SpouseJennifer Ouellette
AwardsAndrew Gemant Award (2014)
Guggenheim Fellowship (2015)
Scientific career
Fields
InstitutionsCalifornia Institute of Technology
Santa Fe Institute
Johns Hopkins University
ThesisCosmological Consequences of Topological and Geometric Phenomena in Field Theories (1993)
Doctoral advisorGeorge B. Field
Websitewww.preposterousuniverse.com

Sean Michael Carroll (born October 5, 1966) is an American theoretical physicist and philosopher who specializes in quantum mechanics, cosmology, and the philosophy of science. He is the Homewood Professor of Natural Philosophy at Johns Hopkins University.[1][2] He was formerly a research professor at the Walter Burke Institute for Theoretical Physics at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) department of physics.[3] He also is currently an external professor at the Santa Fe Institute,[4] and he has been a contributor to the physics blog Cosmic Variance, where he has published in scientific journals such as Nature as well as other publications, including The New York Times, Sky & Telescope, and New Scientist. He is known for his atheism, his vocal critique of theism and defence of naturalism.[5][6][7][8] He is considered a prolific public speaker and science popularizer.[8][9][10] In 2007, Carroll was named NSF Distinguished Lecturer by the National Science Foundation.[11]

He has appeared on the History Channel's The Universe, Science Channel's Through the Wormhole with Morgan Freeman, Closer to Truth (broadcast on PBS),[12] and Comedy Central's The Colbert Report. Carroll is the author of Spacetime And Geometry, a graduate-level textbook in general relativity, and has also recorded lectures for The Great Courses on cosmology, Time in physics and the Higgs boson.[13] He is also the author of four popular books: From Eternity to Here about the arrow of time, The Particle at the End of the Universe about the Higgs boson, The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself about ontology, and Something Deeply Hidden about the foundations of quantum mechanics. He began a podcast in 2018 called Mindscape, in which he interviews other experts and intellectuals coming from a variety of disciplines, including "[s]cience, society, philosophy, culture, arts and ideas" in general.[14] He has also published a YouTube video series entitled "The Biggest Ideas in the Universe" which provides physics instruction at a popular-science level but with equations and a mathematical basis, rather than mere analogy. The series has become the basis of a new book series with the installment, The Biggest Ideas in the Universe: Space, Time, and Motion, published in September 2022.[15]

  1. ^ "Sean Carroll on Twitter". March 7, 2022. Retrieved March 8, 2022.
  2. ^ "Johns Hopkins". Sean Carroll. March 6, 2022. Retrieved March 12, 2022.
  3. ^ "Caltech Walter Burke Institute for Theoretical Physics Faculty Page". Archived from the original on May 8, 2019. Retrieved February 21, 2015.
  4. ^ "Santa Fe Institute Faculty Page". Archived from the original on December 4, 2020. Retrieved November 28, 2020.
  5. ^ "Atheist Physicist Sean Carroll: An Infinite Number of Universes Is More Plausible Than God". Evolution News. August 2, 2017. Retrieved April 9, 2021.
  6. ^ Chan, Kai-yan. "On Sean Carroll's Case for Naturalism and against Theism" (PDF). American Scientific Affiliation. Retrieved March 30, 2021.
  7. ^ Premier. "William Lane Craig & Sean Carroll debate God & Cosmology – Unbelievable?: Saturday 22 March 2014 2:30:00 am". Premier Christian Radio. Archived from the original on February 25, 2021. Retrieved March 20, 2021.
  8. ^ a b ""The evidence is pretty incontrovertible that he doesn't exist": Stephen Colbert's favorite scientist on the universe, naturalism and finding meaning without God". Salon. May 8, 2016. Retrieved June 5, 2021.
  9. ^ Carroll, Sean M. "Sean M Carroll | Speaker | TED". www.ted.com. Retrieved June 5, 2021.
  10. ^ "Sean Carroll". www.aip.org. January 28, 2021. Retrieved June 5, 2021.
  11. ^ "Sean Carroll | Edge.org". www.edge.org. Retrieved June 5, 2021.
  12. ^ "Sean Carroll – Closer to Truth". www.closertotruth.com. Archived from the original on February 24, 2017. Retrieved February 23, 2017.
  13. ^ "Professor Bio Page". Archived from the original on March 17, 2013. Retrieved July 31, 2013.
  14. ^ "Mindscape podcast". Archived from the original on November 14, 2018. Retrieved November 14, 2018.
  15. ^ "The Biggest Ideas in the Universe". Archived from the original on October 17, 2022. Retrieved January 3, 2023.