The Day of Discovery

Thursday 20 Oct 2022, 08:30 → 19:00 America/Toronto

PI/1-100 - Theatre (Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics)

Avery Broderick (Perimeter Institute & University of Waterloo), Pedro Vieira (Perimeter Institute)

Join us for a day that celebrates the advance of human knowledge!  Come and hear from scientific luminaries responsible for defining the modern landscape of physics and working to transform it in the future.  Presentations by Nobel and Breakthrough Prize winners will describe some of the most exciting topics in science today, followed by talks by Perimeter researchers on how these are being pursued now, and culminating with animated panel conversations on how breakthrough science was, is and will be done. 

https://pirsa.org/C22040

Territorial Land Acknowledgement

Perimeter Institute acknowledges that it is situated on the traditional territory of the Anishinaabe, Haudenosaunee, and Neutral peoples.

Perimeter Institute is located on the Haldimand Tract. After the American Revolution, the tract was granted by the British to the Six Nations of the Grand River and the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation as compensation for their role in the war and for the loss of their traditional lands in upstate New York. Of the 950,000 acres granted to the Haudenosaunee, less than 5 percent remains Six Nations land. Only 6,100 acres remain Mississaugas of the Credit land. 

We thank the Anishinaabe, Haudenosaunee, and Neutral peoples for hosting us on their land.

08:30 → 09:15 Registration

09:15 → 09:30 Welcome and Opening Remarks

Speaker: Laurent Freidel (Perimeter Institute)

09:30 → 10:10 Special Guest Talk - 'Science Opportunities Underground: Neutrinos and Dark Matter'

Speaker: Arthur McDonald (SNOLab)

10:10 → 10:35 Perimeter Researcher Talk - 'The Cosmic Neutrino Background on the Surface of the Earth'

Speaker: Asimina Arvanitaki (Perimeter Institute)

10:35 → 11:05 Coffee Break

11:05 → 11:45 Special Guest Talk - 'How to take a picture of a black hole'

Speaker: Sheperd Doeleman (Harvard University)

11:45 → 12:10 Perimeter Researcher Talk - 'CHIME: the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment'

Speaker: Kendrick Smith (Perimeter Institute & University of Waterloo)

12:10 → 12:55 Panel Session: 'Luck vs Grit'

What is the role of luck and serendipity in discovery, and how much is sheer grit? Come hear from a Nobel laureate, Breakthrough prize winners, and several of the most exciting physicists working today on how luck -- or the lack of it -- shapes discovery.

Speakers: Arthur McDonald (SNOLab), Asimina Arvanitaki (Perimeter Institute), Katie Mack, Kendrick Smith (Perimeter Institute & University of Waterloo), Sheperd Doeleman (Harvard University)

12:55 → 14:30 Lunch

14:30 → 15:10 Special Guest Talk - 'The serendipitous road to a Nobel prize'

Speaker: Sir Anthony Leggett (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign )

15:10 → 15:35 Perimeter Researcher Talk - 'Measurement as a shortcut to long-range entangled matter'

Speaker: Timothy Hsieh (Perimeter Institute)

15:35 → 16:10 Coffee Break

16:10 → 16:50 Special Guest Talk - 'From nonlinear optics to high intensity laser physics'

Speaker: Donna Strickland (University of Waterloo)

16:50 → 17:15 Perimeter Researcher Talk - 'Into the woods ... ... and through the trees to gravity, amplitudes, and CFTs'

Speaker: Sabrina Pasterski (Perimeter Institute)

17:15 → 18:00 Panel Session: 'Forest vs Trees'

Some scientific puzzles require a hyper-focussed (perhaps obsessive) attention to specific questions; others need a zoomed-out, interdisciplinary viewpoint. Some combination of both is often the route to breakthroughs. Panelists will share how they strive to see both the forest and the trees when tackling big puzzles.

Speakers: Donna Strickland (University of Waterloo), Lauren Hayward (Perimeter Institute), Sabrina Pasterski, Sir Anthony Leggett (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign), Timothy Hsieh (Perimeter Institute)

18:00 → 19:00 Community Night