This event, hosted by the Oak Centre, is VIRTUAL ONLY. All are welcome. Join here: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85666898463
Conversation overview: Investigations into both particle physics and cosmology over the past 70 years have indicated that our universe has quite a number of particular features that seem finely tuned for both its stability and the existence of life. In response, a number of scientists have advocated a "super Copernican" revolution, in which our universe is regarded as a small part of a much larger structure known as the multiverse. Scientifically, this entails an unprecedented combination of broadened theoretical perspective with severe empirical limitations, implicitly redefining what is meant by science. Theologically, it introduces a new question: why is there something instead of everything? But the multiverse extracts epistemic costs for both science and theology. I will discuss these cost, and explore what alternatives there might be for understanding the atypicality of our observable universe.
Speaker bio:
Dr. Robert Mann has a B.Sc. in physics from McMaster University and an M.Sc. and Ph.D. from the University of Toronto and was a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University. Currently a Professor of Physics at the University of Waterloo, he has been a visiting professor at Harvard University, Cambridge University, the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics, MacQuarie University, the Universite de Francois Robillard at Tours, the University of Queensland, Adolfo Ibanez University, and Pontifica Universidad Catholica de Valparaiso. Author of over 450 papers with more than 20,000 citations (Google Scholar) thus far in his career, he has received several awards, including a Fulbright Fellowship, two Teaching Excellence awards from the Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance and from the University of Waterloo, a Graduate Supervision Excellence Award, and Outstanding Referee Awards from the American Physical Society and the European Physical Society (twice). His most recent honour was to be the recipient of the 2019 Medal of Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching from the Canadian Association of Physicists. He has given over 100 invited conference presentations, over 150 invited seminars and colloquia, and over 40 invited community talks in his career. He was chair of the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Waterloo from 2001-2008 and is an Affiliate Member of the Perimeter Institute and the Institute for Quantum Computing. He is a past-President of the Canadian Association of Physicists and of the Canadian Scientific & Christian Affiliation, a former chair of the Board of Directors of the CAP Foundation, and has served on over thirty university committees and has as well been a member on three Canadian (chairing one) and two American grant selection committees. His research interests are in black holes, cosmology, particle physics, quantum foundations, and quantum information. He is married to a retired Mennonite pastor, and they have one married daughter and son-in-law. He likes movies, travel, cycling, hiking, music, photography, and acting, and has been active in churches his entire life, primarily in volunteer Christian education.