Probing the String Landscape: Implications, Applications, and Controversies

by Prof. Keith Dienes (NSF/U. Maryland/U. Arizona)

Thursday Dec 9, 2010, 3:30 PM → 4:30 PM Pacific/Honolulu

Rm. 112 (UHM - Watanabe Hall)

We are currently in the throes of a potentially huge paradigm shift in physics. Motivated by recent developments in string theory and the discovery of the so-called "string landscape", physicists are beginning to question the uniqueness of fundamental theories of physics and the methods by which such theories might be understood and investigated. In this colloquium, I will give a non-technical introduction to the nature of this paradigm shift and the history of how it developed. I will also discuss some of the questions to which it has led, and the nature of the controversies it has spawned.

Slides Dienes_colloq2.pdf