Fall 2025 Bethe Lecture Series - Public Lecture, Professor Nathan Seiberg, School of Natural Sciences, Institute for Advanced Study

Title:  What Happens at Shorter Distances?

Host:  Tom Hartman

Abstract:  Our understanding of Nature is composed of separate descriptions addressing phenomena at different length scales.  Progress in science occurs in two opposite directions.  One direction is the search for fundamental laws at shorter distances, laws that underlie the descriptions at longer distances.  The other direction is the discovery of new long-distance consequences of these basic laws.  We will demonstrate this two-way approach using several examples from different branches of science.  We will also argue that this two-way approach will likely change in the context of string theory.