Physics & Astronomy Colloquium

3:30 PM, Friday, February 10, 2006

Room 155, Chem-Phys Building

Dr. Sumit Das

Department of Physics and Astronomy
University of Kentucky

``From Matrices to Space-Time''

It has been long suspected that the notion of dynamical space-time and hence gravity is not fundamental, but emerge as good concepts at long distances. Recent advances in String Theory have revealed that in many situations the more fundamental structure is a gauge theory with no gravity - and this gives rise to strings and gravity in higher number of dimensions. We will review the physical concepts underlying this idea and discuss how this has thrown light on intriguing problems involving black holes and cosmological singularities.

Refreshments will be served in CP 155 at 3:15 PM