7:30 pm, Wednesday, Apr 01, 2015
Fairmont Lounge, St. John's College
2111 Lower Mall, UBC

Quantum Black Holes?

Steve Carlip

Forty years ago, Jacob Bekenstein and Stephen Hawking showed that black holes are not really black -- they "glow" the same way a hot bar of steel does, with a temperature that depends on properties of their "event horizons". This behavior involves both gravity and quantum mechanics, and, in fact, it gives us one of the very few pieces of information about quantum gravity that we really believe. In this talk, I will explain this famous "black hole radiation" result, and also discuss the fascinating open question of what (if anything) we can learn about quantum gravity by studying quantum black holes.

To learn more please visit his webpage.

This lecture is one of the PITP's special public events to celebrate the Centenary of General Relativity. You can find the resource matrial here.

Additional resources for this talk: slides and video.