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This talk will explore historical and contemporary points of contact between the development of our understanding of space and time and our conception of human society. It will be argued that the practices of science, art and politics, different as they are, share certain ethical precepts without which none would progress.

Biography

Lee Smolin is a theoretical physicist who has contributed to the unification of quantum theory and space and time. He also works on cosmology, particle physics and quantum theory. He is a researcher at Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo and an Adjunct Professor of Physics at the University of Waterloo. He is the author of two books for the general public which explore the philosophical ramifications of developments in contemporary physics and cosmology, Life in the Cosmos (1977) and Three Roads to Quantum Gravity (2001).

Born in New York City, Lee Smolin was educated at Hampshire College and Harvard University. He was formerly a professor at Yale, Syracuse and Penn State Universities and held postdoctoral positions at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, the Institute for Theoretical Physics, Santa Barbara and the Enrico Fermi Institute, the University of Chicago. He has been a visiting professor at Imperial College London and has held variouvisiting positions at Oxford and Cambridge Universities and the Universities of Rome and Trento, and SISSA, in Italy. Lee has an avid interest as well in philosophy, political theory, and the visual arts and, when he can, sails and plays jazz guitar.