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Noted Physicist Lee Smolin Speaks at Embry-Riddle on String Theory

Lee SmolinDaytona Beach, Fla., March 16, 2007 -- Cutting-edge physicist Dr. Lee Smolin will deliver the sixth Elston Memorial Lecture on Gravitation on April 7 at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. The talk is titled “Finishing Einstein’s Revolution: Three Roads to a Theory of Everything.”

Dr. Smolin is the founder of the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics and a professor of physics at the University of Waterloo, both in Canada. A dynamic speaker, he is also the author of three popular science books: The Life of the Cosmos, Three Roads to Quantum Gravity, and, most recently, The Trouble With Physics: The Rise of String Theory, the Fall of a Science, and What Comes Next.

Among Dr. Smolin’s research interests are reconciling the theories of relativity, which explain the actions of large entities such as space and time, with quantum mechanics, which explains the actions of very small objects.

“For the past 25 years, string theory has been considered the leading candidate to unify the theories of relativity and quantum mechanics that were developed by Einstein and his colleagues,” says Dr. Chris Vuille, an Embry-Riddle physics professor and the organizer of Dr. Smolin’s visit to campus. “However, the increasing dedication of resources to a theory that has yet to be proven true has led to a stagnation in the field of physics that Dr. Smolin believes is leading to a crisis in science.”

Dr. Smolin was educated at Hampshire College and Harvard University. He was formerly a professor at Yale, Syracuse, and Penn State universities and held postdoctoral positions at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton University; the Institute for Theoretical Physics, Santa Barbara; and the Enrico Fermi Institute, University of Chicago.

The lecture, which is free and open to the public, will be held Saturday, April 7, at 7 p.m. in the Miller Instructional Center auditorium on Embry-Riddle’s Daytona Beach campus at 600 S. Clyde Morris Blvd. The talk is co-sponsored by Thomson Publishing and by the following Embry-Riddle groups: the Arts & Letters Committee, the Fred Elston Fund, and the Honors Program. The lecture honors the late Dr. Fred Elston, who died tragically a few years ago. He was loved by students and faculty alike for his kindness of heart, his deep knowledge of physics, and his fantastic sense of humor.

For more information, contact Dr. Chris Vuille at (386) 226-6724 or vuille@erau.edu.

Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, the world’s largest, fully accredited university specializing in aviation and aerospace, offers more than 30 degree programs in its colleges of Arts and Sciences, Aviation, Business, and Engineering. The university educates more than 34,000 students annually in undergraduate and graduate programs at residential campuses in Prescott, Ariz., and Daytona Beach, Fla., through the Worldwide Campus at more than 130 centers in the United States, Europe, Canada, and the Middle East, and through online learning.