UC Santa Cruz Department of Physics presents the STANLEY FLATTÉ MEMORIAL LECTURE

Chaos, Black Holes, and Quantum Mechanics

Lecture Description

The world is a chaotic place. Even if we know the rules of nature, we often find it difficult to predict the future — forecasting the weather is a notorious example. Recently, we have understood that chaos plays a central role in the behavior of black holes, some of the most striking objects in our universe. We will describe these developments and indicate some new insights they have led to in our quest to unify quantum mechanics and the theory of gravity.

Speaker Information

STEPHEN SHENKER

Professor, Stanford University Stephen Shenker has been on the faculty of the University of Chicago and Rutgers University, and is currently the Richard Herschel Weiland Professor at Stanford University. He is a theoretical physicist who has worked on problems ranging from the theory of phase transitions to the nonperturbative formulation of quantum gravity. He is a recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, the Onsager Prize and the Dirac Medal, and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences. From 1998 to 2009, he was the Director of the Stanford Institute for Theoretical Physics.

Details

• Date: FRIDAY MAY 29TH, 2026
• Location: 418 PROJECT
• Time: 6PM
• Refreshments: Provided at 5PM
• Admission: FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC.

University of California Santa Cruz

The Flatté Lecture is a public lecture given by a distinguished physicist at the University of California Santa Cruz. It is organized by the Physics Department. The endowment for the lecture was established to honor Stan Flatté, a professor in the Physics Department.