ISSYP 2009

The complete story of how the scientists’ had predicted the final stages of stars of varying masses: from the application of General Relatively, to the latest astronomical observations. Our journey starts with White Dwarfs and ends with a journey to and into a Black Hole and all the implications…

Information has always been valuable, never more so than in recent decades, and throughout history people have turned to cryptography in an attempt to keep important information secret. New technologies are now emerging based on the counterintuitive laws of quantum physics that govern the atomic…

The refinement of our understanding of Space and Time through thought experiments; starting with Newtonian ideas and ending with the mathematical adventures of Einstein and other prominent scientists as they contemplate the structure of stars.

The reason cosmologists have a job is that the Universe as a whole -- the stuff between planets and stars and galaxies -- is, despite first appearances, a pretty interesting place. The strangest fact about it is that it's expanding, and always has been, as far as we know (and though Einstein's…

Classical physics of a spinning bar magnet in an external magnetic field: energy, angular momentum, torque and its effect on angular momentum, and precession. Application to NMR (Nuclear Magnetic Resonance). The peculiar physics and mathematics of quantum mechanical spin: quantization of spin and…

Physics emerged from the twentieth century with two remarkably successful descriptions of nature which stand in striking contrast. Quantum mechanics describes the subatomic realm with intrinsic uncertainties and probabilities. On the other hand, Einstein's general relativity describe gravitational…

A game that illustrates that quantum theory requires non-locality; an overview of the concept and basic mathematics of entanglement; and the concept of spin introduced via a Stern Gerlach set-up.

Clock synchronization, relativity of simultaneity, nature of space, and how a universal speed limit can make sense.

Dr. Smolin is a faculty member at Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics and author of several books including most recently “The Trouble with Physics”. He is known for devising several different approaches to quantum gravity, in particular, loop quantum gravity. His research interests include…

Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, Feynman sum over paths interpretation of quantum mechanics, and the harmonic oscillator: introduction to tunnelling, QFT (what is a photon?), and zero point energy.

A discussion of the properties of the dynamics of spacetime and how certain aspects of the relational dynamics lead to difficulties in the quantum theory.

Einstein's two principles (continued), the relativistic Doppler shift, nature of time, and the geometry of spacetime.