2007-2008
News Release
REF NO.: 14
SUBJECT: Spooky actions at a distance: Physics lecture takes on Einstein
DATE: September 20, 2007
Einstein's real complaint about the quantum theory was not that it required God to play dice, but that it failed to “represent a reality in time and space, free from spooky actions at a distance." Memorial University of Newfoundland’s Dept. of Physics and Physical Oceanography presents the lecture, Spooky Actions at a Distance by Dr. David Mermin, professor of Physics, Cornell University, on Thursday, Sept. 27, 2007, 7:30 p.m. in room IIC-2001, Inco Innovation Centre.
Dr. Mermin will use the rhetorical device of a computer-simulated lecture demonstration (a cartoon version of recent experiments in Vienna) to explain both the appeal of Einstein's criticism and the remarkable fact that the "reality" he insisted upon is nevertheless impossible. “I will assume no background in quantum physics (or any other physics) but late in the lecture, in convincing you of the impossibility of Einstein's vision, I will ask you to engage in a kind of reasoning not unlike a (very easy) sudoku puzzle,” said Dr. Mermin.
N. David Mermin is the Horace White Professor of Physics Emeritus at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. He received his PhD in Physics from Harvard, and he has garnered numerous honours, including membership in the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and the inaugural American Physics Society Julius Edgar Lilienfeld Prize. He has published over 200 scientific or pedagogical articles and four books, including Boojums all the Way Through - Communicating Science in a Prosaic Age and It's About Time: Understanding Einstein's Relativity. He is also a pianist, and he has written verses to accompany the world premiere of Mark G. Simon's Carnival of the Subatomic Particles, a suite of 13 short musical portraits of subatomic particles, scored for flute, clarinet, violin, cello and piano.
Admission is free and parking is available in Lot 18.
REF NO.: 14
SUBJECT: Spooky actions at a distance: Physics lecture takes on Einstein
DATE: September 20, 2007
Einstein's real complaint about the quantum theory was not that it required God to play dice, but that it failed to “represent a reality in time and space, free from spooky actions at a distance." Memorial University of Newfoundland’s Dept. of Physics and Physical Oceanography presents the lecture, Spooky Actions at a Distance by Dr. David Mermin, professor of Physics, Cornell University, on Thursday, Sept. 27, 2007, 7:30 p.m. in room IIC-2001, Inco Innovation Centre.
Dr. Mermin will use the rhetorical device of a computer-simulated lecture demonstration (a cartoon version of recent experiments in Vienna) to explain both the appeal of Einstein's criticism and the remarkable fact that the "reality" he insisted upon is nevertheless impossible. “I will assume no background in quantum physics (or any other physics) but late in the lecture, in convincing you of the impossibility of Einstein's vision, I will ask you to engage in a kind of reasoning not unlike a (very easy) sudoku puzzle,” said Dr. Mermin.
N. David Mermin is the Horace White Professor of Physics Emeritus at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. He received his PhD in Physics from Harvard, and he has garnered numerous honours, including membership in the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and the inaugural American Physics Society Julius Edgar Lilienfeld Prize. He has published over 200 scientific or pedagogical articles and four books, including Boojums all the Way Through - Communicating Science in a Prosaic Age and It's About Time: Understanding Einstein's Relativity. He is also a pianist, and he has written verses to accompany the world premiere of Mark G. Simon's Carnival of the Subatomic Particles, a suite of 13 short musical portraits of subatomic particles, scored for flute, clarinet, violin, cello and piano.
Admission is free and parking is available in Lot 18.
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