Watch Live Today: String Theory LEGOs for Black Holes [Video]

Physicist Amanda Peet will discuss how cosmic strings might explain nature’s densest objects

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“Why did our universe get created? Why was it just right for us to end up having star formation and galaxy formation and eventually planets and primordial goo and then humans?” asks physicist Amanda Peet of the University of Toronto. “I want to know about these questions just because they’re questions out there that we can ask about the universe.”

Peet will delve into some of those mysteries Wednesday, May 6 at 7 P.M. Eastern time in a public lecture that will be broadcast live here on this page. The talk, “String Theory LEGOs for Black Holes,” is part of a public lecture at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Ontario presented by Sun Life Financial. During the live Webcast a panel of institute physicists will answer questions and provide commentary in the chat window below the video player. The panel will also be available for 30 minutes after the talk finishes to answer further questions. Online viewers can pose questions by tweeting to @Perimeter and using the #piLIVE hashtag.

During the talk Peet will explore the fundamental nature of black holes and the insights string theory can offer about these extreme objects. Peet will also discuss the possibility that black holes, and the universe itself, may be like a hologram—a three-dimensional illusion projected from a two-dimensional surface.

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“I’d like people to take away the message that curiosity about the world is wonderful and that learning things can really unlock many interesting secrets of the intellectual universe,” Peet says in a trailer video for the talk.

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