The Perimeter Institute will be hosting a workshop in September on “Science in the 21st Century“:
Times are changing. In the earlier days, we used to go to the library, today we search and archive our papers online. We have collaborations per email, hold telephone seminars, organize virtual networks, write blogs, and make our seminars available on the internet. Without any doubt, these technological developments influence the way science is done, and they also redefine our relation to the society we live in. Information exchange and management, the scientific community, and the society as a whole can be thought of as a triangle of relationships, the mutual interactions in which are becoming increasingly important.
This is being organizaed by Sabine Hossenfelder, Michael Nielsen and Lee Smolin, so they know a little bit about the topic. The list of participants is certainly an interesting one:
- Bradwell, Steve (PI)
- Collins, Harry (Cardiff University)
- Fuller, Steve* (University of Warwick)
- Ginsparg, Paul (Cornell University)
- Hannay, Timo (Nature Publishing Group)
- Homer-Dixon, Thomas (University of Toronto)
- Kaiser, David (MIT)
- Neylon, Cameron (University of Southampton)
- Noveck, Beth (NYLS)
- Odlyzko, Andrew (University of Minnesota)
- Orzel, Chad (Union College)
- Pang, Alex (ITFT)
- Warner, Simeon (Cornell University)
- Weinstein, Eric
- Wellman, Barry (University of Toronto)
- Willinsky, John (Stanford University)
- Zivkovic, Bora (PLoS)
- …
There are a lot of smart and interesting people on that list, and I’m really looking forward to hearing what they have to say. Actually, I’m really looking forward to hearing what I have to say, because I have no idea…
If you’d like to find out what I come up with, registration is now open…
Who’s that idiot from PLoS? 😉
It will be great to see you there again Chad. Perhaps we can spend some more time chatting than last year in NYC.
Looking forward to seeing you 🙂
Dude, I can meet you in person?! (I live in Waterloo)
Borrowing a line from Dinosaur Comics, “I would like to meet and say “i like your website”, scuffing my feet on the ground, all bashfully.”
The baby’s due in July, right, Chad? I see quid pro quo in your future.
The entirety of the literature can be punctiliously searched in no more than an afternoon. A nasty crystal structure (not protein) takes a day or two at most. Multidimensional NMR, EPR; polarized neutron magnetic probes. Quantum everything on an optical bench at worst. TeraFLOPS computation at will, gigaFLOPS for free. 10^(-9) relative routine sensitivity. Any temp from nanodegrees to megadegrees; megagauss at will, megabar pressures, too.
What is worth asking? Religion has one loud answer – nothing. That is no better than string theory. We’ve got to do better.