42nd Annual Stalnaker Lecture: "Is a Black Hole Just a Large Electron - Questions and Some Answers by an Irreverent Mind" Dr. Athanasios Petridis

Dr Athanasios Petridis, Professor of Physics and Windsor Distinguished Professor in Science, will present the 42nd annual Stalnaker Lecture on October 22, 6:00 PM in Sheslow Auditorium. The lecture, "Is a Black Hole Just a Large Electron? - Questions and Some Answers by an Irreverent Mind" will be followed by a reception in Levitt Hall. The event is free and open to the public.

Abstract: The Theory of Relativity and Quantum Theory collide on the Event Horizon of a Black Hole. The thermodynamics of Black Holes, calculated on a space-time foam, allow for the primordial ones to be candidates for Dark Matter and lead to a metric that incorporates the fundamental properties of Quantum Mechanics in the fabric of space while still satisfying Einstein’s Field Equations. Gravitational microlensing is a tool to investigate this space-time structure. From the perspective of Quantum Information Theory, time and its direction emerge through the act of observation. The deterministic and non-deterministic aspects of Quantum Theory are brought under the same principle of Information Entropy, also predicting the masses of Elementary Particles and yielding a potential solution to the Mass-Hierarchy problem. Electromagnetic corrections to masses of charged particles are studied using the Dirac equation with a statistical renormalization scheme. The spatial separation of matter and antimatter waves results in fascinating speculations about the beginning of the Universe.