Penn Arts & Sciences Logo

Math-Physics Joint Seminar

Tuesday, February 6, 2018 - 5:00pm

Jim Gates

Brown and Maryland

Location

University of Pennsylvania

Meyerson Hall B1, 210 S. 34th Street

Join us for an evening with theoretical physicist Sylvester James Gates, Jr., as he talks about how the mathematical and theoretical aspects of his physics research have traversed concept spaces from equations to graphical imagery to coding theory error-correction, and how it points towards evidence that an evolution-like process may have acted on the mathematical laws that describe reality.

 Gates was awarded the National Medal of Science from President Barack Obama in 2013. His work has produced first introductions of concepts in physics including the complete extension of Einstein's geometrical concepts to the theory of supergravity, genuine four-dimensional string theory based on Standard Model concepts, maximal SUSY Chern-Simons theories, and more. His co-authored book, Superspace, or One Thousand and One Lessons in Supersymmetry, is the first published comprehensive book on supersymmetry.

Gates is currently a Ford Foundation Professor of Physics at Brown University. Prior to this, he worked at the University of Maryland’s Department of Physics and held several titles there—Distinguished University Professor, University Regents Professor, John H. Toll Professor of Physics and Director of the Center for Particle and String Theory.

In addition, Gates holds memberships at the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, and is a fellow of both the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Physical Society.