General Relativity at One Hundred: The Sixth Biennial Bacon Conference
The Divisions of the Humanities and Social Sciences and Physics, Mathematics and Astronomy at Caltech, with the Research Division at The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens, are pleased to present the agenda for the 2016 Francis Bacon Conference.
Titled "General Relativity at One Hundred," or "GR 100," the conference honors the 2014 Bacon Award recipient, Jürgen Renn, Director at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, for his influential studies of structural changes in systems of knowledge. All below-listed events are free and open to the public.
This conference is made possible by the generous financial support of the Francis Bacon Foundation and Caltech's Walter Burke Institute for Theoretical Physics.
Bacon Award Public Lecture
Thursday, March 10
4:00 p.m.
Baxter Lecture Hall, Caltech
"The Genesis and Transformations of General Relativity"
Jürgen Renn, Director, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science
Francis Bacon Conference
Friday, March 11
9:30 a.m. - 5:30 p.m.
Rothenberg Hall, The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens
"The Quest for Gravitational Waves"
Barry Barish, Ronald and Maxine Linde Professor of Physics, Emeritus, Caltech
"The Search for Gravitational Waves: Sociological and Philosophical Investigations"
Harry Collins, Professor, School of Social Sciences, Cardiff University
"Was Einstein Right? A Centennial Assessment"
Clifford Will, Distinguished Professor of Physics, University of Florida
"Einstein & Caltech"
Diana Kormos-Buchwald, Professor of History, Caltech
"Unifying GR with Quantum Theory"
John H. Schwarz, Harold Brown Professor of Theoretical Physics, Emeritus, Caltech
GR 100 Public Lecture
Friday, March 11
7:30 p.m.
Rothenberg Hall, The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens
"100 Years of Relativity: From the Big Bang to Black Holes and Gravitational Waves"
Kip Thorne, Richard P. Feynman Professor of Theoretical Physics, Emeritus, Caltech
Francis Bacon Conference
Saturday, March 12
9:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m.
Hameetman Auditorium, Cahill Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics, Caltech
"Searching for a Cosmological Background of Gravitational Waves"
Jamie Bock, Professor of Physics, Caltech; Jet Propulsion Laboratory Senior Research Scientist
"History of Gravitational Wave Emission"
Daniel Kennefick, Associate Professor of Physics, University of Arkansas
"Gravitational Waves: A New Tool for Observing the Cosmos"
Alessandra Buonanno, Director, Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics
"How General Relativity Shaped Twentieth-Century Philosophy of Science"
Don Howard, Reilly Fellow, John J. Reilly Center for Science, Technology, and Values, University of Notre Dame
"Quantum Information and Spacetime"
John Preskill, Richard P. Feynman Professor of Theoretical Physics, Caltech