The Curious Engineer

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Sean Carroll

preposterousuniverse.com/blog

The Biggest Ideas in the Universe is a series of videos where I talk informally about some of the fundamental concepts that help us understand our natural world. Exceedingly casual, not overly polished, and meant for absolutely everybody. This is Idea #15, "Gauge Theory." Here is where the last coup

Science

’15’16’17’18’19’20’21’22’23’24’25’26
Posts
100 from 22 Dec 2015 to 27 Nov 2025
Posting
now and then (1 in the last year)
Kind
personal blog
Feed
https://preposterousuniverse.com/blog/feed/

2025 1

  1. Thanksgiving

2024 1

  1. George B. Field, 1929-2024

2023 3

  1. New Course: The Many Hidden Worlds of Quantum Mechanics
  2. Thanksgiving
  3. Proposed Closure of the Dianoia Institute at Australian Catholic University

2022 3

  1. Thanksgiving
  2. The Biggest Ideas in the Universe: Space, Time, and Motion
  3. Johns Hopkins

2021 3

  1. Thanksgiving
  2. The Zombie Argument for Physicalism (Contra Panpsychism)
  3. Energy Conservation and Non-Conservation in Quantum Mechanics

2020 28

  1. Thanksgiving
  2. What I Look for in Podcast Guests
  3. The Biggest Ideas in the Universe | 24. Science
  4. The Biggest Ideas in the Universe | 23. Criticality and Complexity
  5. How to Make Educational Videos with a Tablet
  6. The Biggest Ideas in the Universe | 22. Cosmology
  7. The Biggest Ideas in the Universe | 21. Emergence
  8. The Biggest Ideas in the Universe | 20. Entropy and Information
  9. The Biggest Ideas in the Universe | 19. Probability and Randomness
  10. The Biggest Ideas in the Universe | 18. Atoms
  11. The Biggest Ideas in the Universe | 17. Matter
  12. The Biggest Ideas in the Universe | 16. Gravity
  13. The Biggest Ideas in the Universe | 15. Gauge Theory
  14. The Biggest Ideas in the Universe | 14. Symmetry
  15. The Biggest Ideas in the Universe |13. Geometry and Topology
  16. The Biggest Ideas in the Universe | 12. Scale
  17. The Biggest Ideas in the Universe | 11. Renormalization
  18. The Biggest Ideas in the Universe | 10. Interactions
  19. The Biggest Ideas in the Universe | 9. Fields
  20. The Biggest Ideas in the Universe | 8. Entanglement
  21. The Biggest Ideas in the Universe | 7. Quantum Mechanics
  22. The Biggest Ideas in the Universe | 6. Spacetime
  23. The Biggest Ideas in the Universe | 5. Time
  24. The Biggest Ideas in the Universe | 4. Space
  25. The Biggest Ideas in the Universe | 3. Force, Energy, and Action
  26. The Biggest Ideas in the Universe | 2. Change
  27. The Biggest Ideas in the Universe | 1. Conservation
  28. The Biggest Ideas in the Universe: Introduction

2019 4

  1. Thanksgiving
  2. The Notorious Delayed-Choice Quantum Eraser
  3. Spacetime and Geometry: Now at Cambridge University Press
  4. True Facts About Cosmology (or, Misconceptions Skewered)

2018 11

  1. Thanksgiving
  2. Atiyah and the Fine-Structure Constant
  3. Mindscape Podcast
  4. On Civility
  5. Intro to Cosmology Videos
  6. User-Friendly Naturalism Videos
  7. Stephen Hawking’s Scientific Legacy
  8. Dark Matter and the Earliest Stars
  9. Why Is There Something, Rather Than Nothing?
  10. Guest Post: Nicole Yunger Halpern on What Makes Extraordinary Science Extraordinary
  11. Beyond Falsifiability

2017 11

  1. Thanksgiving
  2. Standard Sirens
  3. Mind-Blowing Quantum Mechanics
  4. Joe Polchinski’s Memories, and a Mark Wise Movie
  5. A Response to “On the time lags of the LIGO signals” (Guest Post)
  6. Congratulations to Grant and Jason!
  7. The Big Picture: Paperback Day
  8. Guest Post: Nathan Moynihan on Amplitudes for Astrophysicists
  9. Is Inflationary Cosmology Science?
  10. Marching for Science
  11. What Happened at the Big Bang?

2016 34

  1. Memory-Driven Computing and The Machine
  2. Quantum Is Calling
  3. Thanksgiving
  4. Gifford Lectures on Natural Theology
  5. Talking About Dark Matter and Dark Energy
  6. Leonard Cohen
  7. The Future of Democratic Values
  8. Entropy and Complexity, Cause and Effect, Life and Time
  9. Live Q&As, Past and Future
  10. Consciousness and Downward Causation
  11. Maybe We Do Not Live in a Simulation: The Resolution Conundrum
  12. You Should Love (or at least respect) the Schrödinger Equation
  13. Space Emerging from Quantum Mechanics
  14. Father of the Big Bang
  15. The Big Picture: The Talk
  16. Give the People What They Want
  17. Big Picture Part Six: Caring
  18. Big Picture Part Five: Thinking
  19. Big Picture Part Four: Complexity
  20. Big Picture Part Three: Essence
  21. Big Picture Part Two: Understanding
  22. Big Picture Part One: Cosmos
  23. Entropic Time
  24. The Big Picture: What It’s All About
  25. Youthful Brilliance
  26. Being: Human
  27. Science Career Stories
  28. Did LIGO Detect Dark Matter?
  29. Einstein’s Girl
  30. Gravitational Waves at Last
  31. Guest Post: Grant Remmen on Entropic Gravity
  32. Quantum Fluctuations
  33. We Suck (But We Can Be Better)
  34. That’s Just What They Would Say

2015 1

  1. Cosmic Maelstrom