Cosmology and Constants of Nature

Cosmology and the Constants of Nature
Monday, 17 March 2014 at 09:00 - Wednesday, 19 March 2014 at 15:00 (GMT);
DAMTP, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom

The Constants of Nature are quantities, whose numerical values we know with
the greatest experimental accuracy - but about the rationale for those
values, we have the greatest ignorance. We might also ask if they are indeed
constant in space and time, and investigate whether their values arise at
random or are uniquely determined by some deep theory.

This mini-series of talks (in mornings only) is part of the joint
Oxford-Cambridge programme on the Philosophy of Cosmology which aims to
introduce philosophers of physics to fundamental problems in cosmology and
associated areas of high-energy physics.

The talks are aimed at philosophers of physics but should also be of
interest to a wide range of cosmologists. Speakers will introduce the
physical constants that define the standard model of particle physics and
cosmology together with the data that determine them, describe observational
programmes that  test the constancy of traditional 'constants', including
the cosmological constant, and discuss how self-consistent theories of
varying constants can be formulated.

Speakers:
John Barrow, University of Cambridge
John Ellis, King's College London
Pedro Ferreira, University of Oxford
Joao Magueijo, Imperial College, London
Thanu Padmanabhan, IUCAA, Pune
Martin Rees, University of Cambridge
John Webb, University of New South Wales, Sydney

Registration is free and includes morning coffee and lunch.
Participants are requested to register at the conference website; where the
full programme of talks can also be found at:
http://www.damtp.cam.ac.uk/events/constants2014/

For enquiries about this event please contact Margaret Bull at
[email protected]