When some of the best physicists in the world zero in on a location, things are bound to happen.
The event in question is Strings 2015, an annual conference of string theorists, and the place, Bengaluru. The conference is being hosted in India after 14 years, by the International Centre for Theoretical Sciences, and is a site where deep questions on cosmology, black holes, branes and much more are being posed and discussed. Significantly, the conference presents a host of public outreach events, too.
There will be an interactive session in which Ashoke Sen of Harish Chandra Research Institute will interact with students along with Nima Arkani-Hamed from Institute of Advanced Study, Princeton. This will be followed by popular level lectures by Nathan Seiberg of Institute of Advanced Study; and Andrew Strominger and Cumrun Vafa, both of Harvard University.
Pitched at a more advanced level, a special session on General Theory of Relativity will be held which would be of interest to students of physics. This session is being held to commemorate 100 years since Albert Einsten proposed the theory. Nobel Laureate David Gross, Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics, Santa Barbara; will speak about Einstein’s enduring legacy. Also in this session, Fields medal recipient Edward Witten, Institute of Advanced Study, Princeton, will explain string theory to physicists; and Peter Saulson, Syracuse University, will speak on gravitational waves. Juan Maldacena, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, whose paper on the holographic universe set the world of physics on fire, will speak about spacetime and geometry; and Francois Bouchet, Institut d'astrophysique de Paris, will speak on cosmology.
