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Focus Session on "The Nature of Time on Fundamental Science"

November 9 - 10, 2009
320 Whitmore Lab


Focus Session Program



Monday, November 9
  8:50 -   9:00Welcome - Abhay Ashtekar
                 Session Chair: Murat Gunaydin
  9:00 -   9:50Paul Steinhardt - "What Happened at the Big Bang and How It Affects Our View
of Cosmic History and the Limits of Scientific Knowledge"
10:00 - 10:30Break
10:30 - 11:20Paul Sommers - "There is a Future"
11:30 - 12:00Discussion
                 Session Chair: Jorge Pullin
  1:30 -   2:20Bill Unruh - "Time is Measured"
  2:30 -   3:20Karel Kuchar - "Reflections on Time in Canonical Gravity"
  3:30 -   4:00Break
                 Session Chair: Abhay Ashtekar
  4:00 -   4:50Rodolfo Gambini and Jorge Pullin - "Evolving Constants as Clocks in Quantum Gravity"
  5:00 -   6:00Discussion
Tuesday, November 10
                 Session Chair: John Earman
  9:00 -   9:50Rodolfo Gambini and Jorge Pullin - "The Role of Self-Adjointness in Selecting a Clock
and Multi-Fingered Time"
10:00 - 10:30Break
10:30 - 11:20Romeo Brunetti - "Quantum Coordinates for Events"
11:30 - 12:00Discussion
                 Session Chair: Paul Sommers
  1:30 -   2:20Abhay Ashtekar - "Exploring the Issue of Time Through Quantum Cosmology"
  2:30 -   3:30Discussion

Workshop sponsored by the Center for Fundamental Theory

Institute for Gravitation and the Cosmos, The Pennsylvania State University