SPECIAL PANEL DISCUSSION following the February 8th matinee performance of Michael Frayn's award-winning play COPENHAGEN In keeping with an extraordinary international tradition, Subtle Technologies is pleased to bring together some of Canada's top science experts to discuss the scientific and ethical issues raised by the play. "In 1941, the German physicist Werner Heisenberg made a mysterious visit to Copenhagen to see his former teacher and colleague, Niels Bohr. They were old friends and their work together had opened the way toward nuclear fission. But now they were on opposite sides in a world war and the race to build the atomic bomb was on. Scientists and historians have argued ever since about why Heisenberg made his visit, and what the two men said." from Mirvish Productions website Sunday February 8th 2004 Winter Garden Theatre 189 Yonge Street, Toronto Matinee 2pm Panel Discussion 4:30pm To purchase tickets to the play visit: http://www.onstagenow.com/Copenhagen/ Admission to the panel discussion is free. PANELISTS John W. Moffat Resident Affiliate Member, Perimeter Institute of Theoretical Physics and Professor Emeritus, University of Toronto John W. Moffat is Professor Emeritus at the University of Toronto and a Resident Affiliate Member of the Perimeter Institute of Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Ontario. Over the years, he has been internationally well-known as a creative iconoclast in the field of theoretical physics. He is known for his Nonsymmetric Gravitational Theory [NGT], which is an alternative to Einstein's General Relativity, and for his more recent Varying Speed of Light cosmology [VSL], which posits that light traveled faster at the beginning of the universe. As a young physicist beginning his career, Professor Moffat met in real life all three characters in Michael Frayn's play. At age 18, Moffat had corresponded with Einstein concerning the famous physicist's unified field theory. Niels Bohr interviewed Moffat in 1953 in Copenhagen, and was very interested in this correspondence and its implications for his own work. Later, in 1955, Moffat met Professor Werner Heisenberg when he visited Cambridge University and gave a talk on his unified theory. Moffat was then a graduate student at Trinity College, Cambridge, and received his PhD. in 1958. Moffat had also met Margarethe Bohr and their son Aage Bohr in 1953 at the Bohrs' home in Copenhagen. John Moffat was born in Copenhagen in 1932 of a Danish mother and Scots father. He moved to Canada in 1964, as an Associate Professor of Physics at the University of Toronto, and became a full Professor in 1967. James Robert Brown Professor of Philosophy, University of Toronto Dr. Brown's work explores the philosophical, social and ethical implications of scientific endeavour - and its remarkable parallels in the 'rest' of the world. An accomplished author, his most recent book, Who Rules in Science? is an examination of politics and epistemology in the so-called 'science wars'. Other books include Smoke and Mirrors, on realism and other issues in the philosophy of science; The Laboratory of the Mind; Philosophy of Mathematics and The Rational and the Social. Scott Menary Experimental Particle Physicist, York University Particle Physics is described as the search for answers to fundamental questions. An Experimental Particle Physicist, Dr. Menary has worked at CERN, the European Laboratory for Particle Physicsin Geneva, Switzerland, the University of California at Santa Barbara, and Fermilab, the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory near Chicago. Now at York University, he has continued to collaborate internationally in pursuit of these elusive answers. Stephen Strauss, Moderator Science Writer, The Globe and Mail |
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