[Sci-tech-public] Reminder: special sts/physics lecture tomorrow

[Judy Spitzer]

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Special Guest Lecture:

"A Tear at the Edge of Creation: Cosmos, Life and 
the Search for a Final Theory"

by MARCELO GLEISER

Appleton Professor of Natural Philosophy, 
Professor of Physics and Astronomy, Dartmouth College

{Sponsored by the STS Program, Physics 
Department, and the Knight Science Journalism Fellows Program}


DAY:   Tuesday, April 13
TIME:    12:30--2:00 p.m.
PLACE:   room E51-315, MIT  (2 Amherst Street, Kendall Square, Cambridge)

Free and Open to the Public
Feel free to bring your lunch

Contact person:  Judy Spitzer, jspitzer at mit.edu,
617-253-4044, STS Program, MIT


ABSTRACT:  Can we find a Final Theory that 
explains Nature in all of its complexity?  Or is 
this search fundamentally misguided, more a dream 
than a reality?  Some of the greatest scientists 
of all time, Kepler, Newton, Faraday, Einstein, 
Heisenberg, and Schrödinger, believed in and 
searched for this elusive "hidden code of 
Nature."  In this talk, I will argue that the 
belief in a Final Theory is rooted in the 
monotheistic religious tradition.  Examining the 
teachings of modern science, from theories about 
the origin of the universe to the origin of 
matter and of life, we learn a very different 
lesson: that Nature's creative engine depends on 
asymmetries that manifest themselves in all 
levels of complexity.  This revelation has 
implications for all of us.  If we are here 
because Nature is imperfect, how common is life 
in the universe?  Can we guarantee that, given 
similar conditions, life will emerge 
elsewhere?  What about intelligent life?  Are 
there other thinking beings in the cosmos?  I 
will argue that although life may exist 
elsewhere, intelligent life is exceedingly 
rare.  This makes us very important in the big 
scheme of things.  Being rare and precious, we 
have the moral directive to preserve life and 
this planet.  And we don't have a minute to waste.

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