On November 26, 2012 the Bookshelf and the University of Guelph College of Art's Cafe Philosophique sponsored a sold-out lecture by Neil Turok, Director of Waterloo's Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics and this year's Massey Lecturer. Neil's lecture was wide-ranging; he explained the nature of quantum mechanics and explored the various implications it raised, related episodes from his own life, and examined the relationship between science and society. The crowd was rapt as it tried to digest the mind-bending scientific concepts Neil presented, and when it came time for the question and answer period, monitored by the Dean of the College of Arts, Donald Bruce, the center aisle of Lakeside Hope House was lined with people standing and sitting, eagerly awaiting their chance to ask a question.
The Q&A was so interesting that we've posted videos of the questions and Neil's responses on our Bookshelfvideos YouTube channel (where you can also find videos of Chris Hedge's presentation and a collection of cool book trailers). The audience's questions were penetrating and Neil's responses were illuminating, covering everything from space travel to the cultural foundations of physics to the relationship between quantum reality and consciousness.
Neil's Massey Lectures are published in his accessible and engaging book The Universe Within: From Quantum to Cosmos.
No comments:
Post a Comment