A Remembrance by Dr. James A. Overton: Dr. Cesare Romagnoli died last week after a long fight with cancer. He was a radiologist by vocation, a philosopher by disposition, a member of the Rotman Institute of Philosophy by invitation, and a good friend by innate talent. I cannot do justice to the complex person that [...]
Leo Kadanoff—renowned physicist and beloved teacher—passed away early this week. Here at the Rotman Institute, we benefited greatly from Dr. Kadanoff’s deep knowledge of physics and extensive academic experience. He was a valued member of the Institute's International Advisory Committee (IAC) from 2008 to 2012. These five years were pivotal for the Institute, and we [...]
Video of Chris Smeenk's lecture, Einstein’s Path to a New Theory, has been posted on the Rotman Institute of Philosophy YouTube channel. In November 1915, Einstein published a new theory of gravity. This lecture recounts the “rough and winding road” Einstein took in developing his theory, which ended with a dramatic race to the finish. [...]
During this month, Rotman Institute of Philosophy graduate student, Emma Ryman, is giving two talks. The first talk, given last week at Brock University, was at the symposium, Consuming Intimacies: Bodies, Labour, Care, and Social Justice. She presented a paper entitled, "The Patient Worker: A Model for Transnational Human Subjects Research and Contract Pregnancy", along [...]
by Lucas Dunlap Einstein has become such a cultural touchstone that the internet is full of dubiously sourced quotations attributed to him. One of the most famous usually appears as “I refuse to believe that God plays dice with the universe”, or more simply “God doesn’t play dice”. This appears to be a paraphrase of [...]
by Dr. Chris Fiacconi We have all had the experience of being in a potentially threatening situation. Your neck tenses, your heart pounds, and your palms sweat. You feel afraid, and try to escape from danger. In other words, you run away because you are scared. However, modern scientific research on how our brains generate [...]
Video of David Chalmer’s lecture, Spatial Experience and Virtual Reality, has been posted on the Rotman Institute of Philosophy YouTube channel. Do virtual reality devices such as the Oculus Rift produce the illusion of an external reality? Or do they produce non-illusory experiences of a virtual reality? Chalmers addressed this question by starting with an [...]
by Craig Fox A popular picture of scientific revolutions, such as Einstein’s overthrow of Newtonian physics, paints them as involving something like a gestalt shift; they involve a sudden reorientation of the perspective through which we see the world. The perspective through which scientists see the world is a more or less loose set of [...]
Remaining videos from the The Gravity and Geometry: Centenary Perspectives on General Relativity conference have been posted to the Rotman YouTube channel. The following videos are now included in the playlist: Lee Smolin, Perimeter Institute The Identity of the Indiscernible as a Physical Principle [embedyt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyBxRonlmvo[/embedyt] Marco Giovanelli, Einstein Papers Project "What is truth?" Einstein on [...]
Rotman Institute graduate student, Jamie Shaw, has a new publication in Gnosis entitled, "Moderate Moderation: The Mean of Excess". This paper argues that Aristotle's 'doctrine of the mean' should not be interpreted as saying that the mean is purely context dependent but, rather, on considerations of the good life as a whole. This is accomplished [...]
