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Sean Carroll

Sean Carroll is a physicist, author and host of Mindscape, exploring quantum mechanics, cosmology, philosophy and the ideas that connect them.

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Latest

Sean’s happenings, collected from public sources, plus his backstory and Starbook, where fans write.

Known for

Overview

Based in: Baltimore, Maryland
Work: Physicist, author and podcast host
Education: Ph.D., Harvard University, 1993
Academic home: Homewood Professor of Natural Philosophy, Johns Hopkins University
Online beginnings: Started the Preposterous Universe blog in 2004
Book milestone: The Particle at the End of the Universe won the 2013 Royal Society Winton Prize
Podcast: Launched Mindscape in 2018

Mini bio

How it started.

Sean became interested in physics at about ten. He studied astronomy and astrophysics at Villanova and Harvard, while also pursuing philosophy. After postdoctoral work at MIT and UC Santa Barbara, he joined the University of Chicago faculty in 1999. Teaching helped turn his general relativity lecture notes into the textbook Spacetime and Geometry, and he began blogging at Preposterous Universe in 2004.

Finding a wider audience.

He moved to Caltech in 2006 and expanded his work for general audiences. His 2012 book The Particle at the End of the Universe followed the hunt for the Higgs boson and won the Royal Society Winton Prize in 2013. The Big Picture connected physics with questions about life and meaning; Something Deeply Hidden made his case for the Many-Worlds approach to quantum mechanics.

A conversation that keeps growing.

Sean launched Mindscape in 2018, bringing his curiosity to conversations across science, philosophy, history and the arts. Fans can explore episode transcripts and recurring Ask Me Anything discussions alongside the interviews. His 2020 physics video series grew into The Biggest Ideas in the Universe books, which introduce the actual equations behind modern physics to readers with high-school algebra.

Where he is now.

At Johns Hopkins, Sean’s appointment joins physics and philosophy. He also serves as Fractal Faculty at the Santa Fe Institute. His research asks how quantum mechanics, spacetime, entropy and complexity fit together, while Mindscape gives those questions room alongside ideas from other fields.

Creditschronological, newest first

Books

2024Quanta and Fields: The Biggest Ideas in the Universe, vol. 2Author
2022The Biggest Ideas in the Universe: Space, Time, and MotionAuthor
2019Something Deeply HiddenAuthor
2016The Big PictureAuthor
2012The Particle at the End of the UniverseAuthor

Podcasts

2018–presentSean Carroll’s MindscapeHost

Awards

Quotes

I would remain true to my own intellectual passions, and let the chips fall where they may.Sean Carroll, A Personal Narrative

Writing in 2015, Sean recalled deciding to keep pursuing teaching, writing and research after being denied tenure at Chicago.

Trivia

His degrees are in astronomy and astrophysics, even though his career centers on theoretical physics.
He and his high-school debate partner finished second in their state championships.
His cats Ariel and Caliban sometimes make themselves heard in Mindscape recordings.
The Biggest Ideas in the Universe books grew out of videos he made during the summer of 2020.