Big Questions Thrill at World Science Festival

“It’s mostly because you’re working in the dark, and you don’t know what you are doing, that you can do something new,” composer Philip Glass remarked at last year’s World Science Festival (WSF). This year, Big Questions of the kind he had in mind were firmly on the agenda again.

They include whether madness is linked to creativity, and whether there is life on any of the 700 exoplanets that have been discovered orbiting other suns. The strange implications of quantum theory were also explored, not least whether quantum particles can interact with one another, even though nothing travels between them—so-called “spooky action.” No less a figure than Einstein was unsettled by that one.

The festival is a five-day celebration in New York City that gathers leading scientists, world-renowned artists, and innovative thinkers to discuss and exchange ideas. Tens of thousands of festival-goers joined them to listen in.

The John Templeton Foundation (JTF), a founding festival benefactor, sponsored five events as part of WSF’s Big Ideas Series. The goal: to transform public perceptions of science, illuminate critical global issues informed by science, and enhance public discourse about our search for a deeper understanding of our origins and place in the universe.

“Spooky action is a term Einstein originated,” explains Brian Greene, professor of physics and mathematics at Columbia University. “Some have described this as the single most profound result in all of physics.” He took his audience on a journey through the development of quantum theory, from the early 1900s to the current day.

Photo: Michael Weintrob/
World Science Festival 2012

Brian Greene

Greene says that it is a particularly good subject for the Big Ideas Series because the explorations that led to advancing the idea were far more than just an intellectual exercise. “Overthrowing the Newtonian worldview was for many physicists a wrenching emotional transition, one that has transformed the very basis of reality,” he explains. The audience heard from actors, using text drawn from the historical record, to give a visceral sense of how scientists like Einstein and Niels Bohr struggled to come to grips with a startling new understanding of the universe.

Talking of the historical record, the shared history of humans and Neanderthals was the focus for another Big Question: why did we thrive while they perished?

On the panel was Professor Chris Stringer, a distinguished paleoanthropologist and a founder of the “Out of Africa” theory of human origins. He pointed out that human dominance is a recent development. Just 100,000 years ago, there were several different human species on the planet, with none of them having particularly good prospects for long term survival.

“There were plenty of other paths that could have been taken; many would have led to no humans at all, others to extinction, and yet others to a different version of ‘modernity’,” Stringer writes in his new book, Lone Survivors. “Sometimes the difference between failure and success in evolution is a narrow one, and we are certainly on a knife edge now as we confront an overpopulated planet and the prospect of global climate change on a scale that humans have never faced before.”

The festival attracted widespread media coverage. Scientific American picked up on a discussion of the nature of madness, another of the JTF sponsored events. JTF also sponsored discussions examining the significance of neutrinos and exoplanets.

Photo: Chris Farber/World Science Festival 2012

Madness Redefined panel

The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal highlighted the “magic” of the quantum world, celebrated in tricks performed by Professor Greene at the opening gala.

“Sir John Templeton wanted his philanthropy to address the Big Questions about ultimate reality, and to disseminate the results in ways that amplify our curiosity and multiply our enthusiasm,” says Michael J. Murray, executive vice president, programs, at JTF. “The World Science Festival is a major platform, reaching audiences of all ages, catalyzing these very results. This year’s sponsored sessions exemplify the best of what Sir John hoped for in inspiring others to discover the deep truths of reality.”

Evidence-Based Practices of Gratitude

Photo: Karin Higgins/UC Davis

Project Leader Robert Emmons

Robert Emmons, professor of psychology at University of California, Davis, is one of the leading investigators of gratitude, defined as an attitude of enduring thankfulness. A pioneer in the field of positive psychology, he discovered that keeping a diary of events for which individuals were grateful dramatically increased their happiness. A grateful disposition also has a beneficial impact upon health.

Emmons has received a $5.6 million grant from the John Templeton Foundation to fund a three-year project to develop evidence-based practices that promote gratitude in schools, offices, and communities. "Thanks to the generosity of the John Templeton Foundation, we will be able to rapidly grow the science of gratitude and expand the scientific database of this key human virtue, particularly in the areas of health and happiness, social relationships and developmental psychology," Emmons explains.

The grant will support "Expanding the Science and Practice of Gratitude," a project incorporating researchers from UC Davis, UC Berkeley, Hofstra University in Hempstead, NY, and California State University, Dominguez Hills.

Public Lectures at Turing Centenary Conference

Photo: National Portrait
Gallery, London

Alan Turing

This month, the University of Manchester, UK, will host the biggest event in the history of computer science to celebrate the centenary of the birth of Alan Turing, the father of the modern computer. Lectures and panel discussions (June 22-25) will honor the renowned code-breaker, mathematician, and computer scientist. The John Templeton Foundation is one of the main sponsors.

The event will include two 90-minute public lectures on Turing's legacy. The first will be delivered by Jack Copeland, one of Turing's biographers, at University Place at the University of Manchester on June 22 at 6:30 PM. The second will be given by physicist Roger Penrose at Manchester Town Hall on June 25 at 8:00 PM. Free tickets may be booked in advance.

"We decided to organize a conference aimed at pushing forward our understanding of the most fundamental and important issues in information science and artificial intelligence," explains conference organizer Professor Andrei Voronkov. In addition, the conference will feature a computer chess event, a poster session, and a competition for computer programs that prove theorems.