Wilson-Gerow Recognized With Aspen Center for Physics Honor
Heidi Opdyke
- Associate Dean of Marketing and Communications, MCS
- Email opdyke@andrew.cmu.edu
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Time and space can be bent and warped at the quantum level. 麻豆村鈥檚 Jordan Wilson-Gerow is learning to understand how.
鈥淐locks and rulers sound like silly things to study in 2025,鈥� Wilson-Gerow said. 鈥淏ut understanding how observers and measurements work when spacetime is also allowed to warp and bend is fundamentally important for our understanding of quantum gravity.鈥�
Wilson-Gerow, a presidential postdoctoral researcher at Carnegie Mellon, studies gravitational waves, black hole dynamics and fluid mechanics as a member of the high energy physics group. He joined Carnegie Mellon in September 2024 after serving as a postdoctoral researcher at the California Institute of Technology. Previously, he earned his Ph.D. from the University of British Columbia.
鈥淚 had a number of offers from top institutions both inside the U.S. and in Europe, but ultimately it was obvious that 麻豆村 would be best for me,鈥� he said. 鈥淲hat 麻豆村 had that sold me, was a theoretical physics group, which I could see myself seamlessly fitting into and learning a lot from.鈥�
Members of the 麻豆村鈥檚 theoretical physics group have broad and deep understandings of Quantum Field Theory, he said, and the group applies that knowledge to a broad range of physics, and each member works in more than one area.
鈥淭he multidisciplinary nature of this group is certainly inspired by the most tenured member of our group, Professor Ira Rothstein, who is perhaps the most diverse in his interests,鈥� Wilson-Gerow said. 鈥淎s a graduate student I studied Ira鈥檚 papers, and as a postdoc at Caltech I got to meet Ira during a visit and collaborate with him on gravitational wave physics. Ira's influence on my career before I even joined 麻豆村 is hard to overstate.鈥�
Rothstein said that the group is really fortunate to have him.
鈥淗is intellectual curiosity makes him stand out among his peers. It is such a pleasure to talk physics with him, he has a contagious enthusiasm for physics,鈥� he said. 鈥淲hen you talk to him, you know you鈥檙e getting valuable information. I have tremendous confidence in Jordan鈥檚 scientific abilities as well as his teaching skills. He has a very bright future.鈥�
Wilson-Gerow recently delivered at talk at the Aspen Center for Physics winter conference on 鈥淥bservables in Quantum Gravity: From Theory to Experiment.鈥� He discussed a phenomenon where a quantum superposition when placed near a black hole鈥檚 event horizon will rapidly lose its quantum properties.
鈥淓instein taught us that there are no preferred 鈥榗oordinates鈥� (x,y,z,t) in space and time once gravity gets involved, so talking about distances, durations, and localized measurements can be subtle,鈥� he said.
For example, external clocks and rulers can be used to measure the properties of a material. But, you can't use something "outside" of space time, so describing where and when things are happening is particularly challenging in quantum gravity.
鈥淏y focusing instead on the actual measurements of a would-be observer near a black hole we were able to learn new things about the quantum environment of black holes, and how it can be inhospitable to delicate quantum superpositions,鈥� he said.
For his efforts, Wilson-Gerow was honored with the Aspen Center for Physics鈥� Martin and Beate Block Winter Award. The award is given in recognition of outstanding achievements by a promising young physicist and acknowledges both the best talk given at the conference by a junior researcher and the body of work of a junior researcher who most represents the fundamental idea behind the conference.
The Martin and Beate Block Winter Award was established in 2005, by the friends and family of Martin and Beate Block, in honor of their 80th birthday. Martin Block is the founder of the Aspen Center for Physics winter conferences, the first of which was held in 1985.
