News

From September 12-16, the Cosmology Group will be hosting an international conference in the philosophy of cosmology together with its sister group in the UK. In Tenerife, Spain, the conference will bring leading researchers in cosmology together with philosophers of physics and cosmology to discuss a panoply of topics including the arrow of time, quantum foundations and cosmology, laws of nature and initial conditions, and the emergence of spacetime. More details here.

Congratulations to cosmology group post-doc Anna Ijjas, who has received a postdoctoral fellowship with the Princeton Center for Theoretical Science.  There she will continue her work on early universe cosmology and alternatives to the inflationary paradigm.

This Friday, October 25, Sean Carroll of Caltech will be visiting the New York Philosophy of Science Group.  He'll be discussing cosmology in very large universes from 4-6 PM (abstract below).  The talk will take place in the NYU philosophy building, 5 Washington Place, 1st floor.  For a full schedule of New York area Philosophy of Physics Group discussions, see nyphilsci.wordpress.com (these events are also on our calendar page). 

Thursday, October 24,  Dr. Carroll will give a colloquium for the NYU physics department at 4PM in Meyer room 122.

Wednesday, October 23, Dr. Carroll will visit Barry Loewer's class at Rutgers.  For more information, or if you would like to attend for Dr. Carroll's visit, contact Barry Loewer at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Next week, David Wallace will give a colloquium at the Rutgers Philosophy Department on Thursday, October 31.  The talk will take place at 106 Somerset St, 5th floor, at 4:30. Dr. Wallace will then visit the New York Philosophy of Science Group on Friday, November 1, at 4PM.

Read more: Sean Carroll at NY Philosophy of Science Group

Cosmology Group Researcher Anna Ijjas got a hat-tip in the latest issue of New Scientist.  Check out the article on their webpage, at your local newsstand, or see the full text here.

A great wrap-up of our summer institute can be found over at the Rotman Institute's Engaging Science blog.  There's a good guided tour of the topics discussed in the workshop, with links to the videos that discuss them.  

Structure in Physics is a 2-day conference hosted by Rutgers University and bringing together leading researchers to discuss the metaphysical implications of physics.  The conference will examine the relationship between metaphysics and physics by discussing the metaphysical implications of quantum mechanics, statistical mechanics, and cosmology.  The conference will take place Friday, April 26 and Saturday, April 27. For more information, see the conference webpage.

Note: the concluding roundtable previously scheduled for Sunday, April 28, has been cancelled due to a scheduling conflict.

Tomorrow, March 28, from 4:00-6:00, Professor Jeremy Butterfield of Trinity College, Cambridge, will deliver "Distinguishing Varieties of Relativistic Causality."  The talk will take place at 5 Washington Place.  For more information, check out this flyer or the New York/ New Jersey Philosophy of Science Discussion Group's webpage.

Rethinking Cosmology

Paul Steinhardt, Albert Einstein Professor of Physics at Princeton,  will visit Rutgers' Philosophy of Physics Seminar April 19.  This talk will begin by discussing the various reasons why most cosmologists today consider the big bang inflationary cosmology to be the leading, if not proven, theory of the universe.  Then the discussion will turn to explaining why each of these reasons is flawed.  This naturally leads to the question: "What is the alternative?"  Understanding the flaws suggests possible directions to turn.

For a quick background, check out this article: The Inflation Debate.  More background articles will be posted soon on the course webpage.

The talk will take place from 1:00-4:00 PM on Friday, April 19.

Call for Applications

Summer Institute/School in Philosophy of Cosmology UC Santa Cruz (UCSC) June 23-July 14, 2013

Directors: David Albert (Columbia), Barry Loewer (Rutgers), Joel Primack (UCSC)

The Multi-university Templeton Project on Philosophy of Cosmology will conduct a three week summer institute in philosophy of cosmology at the University of California Santa Cruz. The purpose of the institute is to promote understanding of and research in issues in the philosophy of cosmology. Among the topics to be discussed are philosophical foundations of statistical mechanics, quantum mechanics, and relativity theory, the direction of time, questions of whether space and time are fundamental or emergent, reasons for believing in a multi-verse, anthropic arguments, the metaphysics of laws and chance, why anything at all exists. There will also be lectures on recent developments in cosmology intended for participants who are not cosmologists.

Read more: Call for Applications to Summer Institute in Philosophy and Cosmology

Three new postdoctoral fellows are now joining are project.  We're excited to welcome Anna Ijjas, Ward Struyve, and Tiziana Vistarini to the team!