FREE PUBLIC EVENT: The Scriptorium and CSCA’s Vancouver present chapter a lecture with Robert Mann (University of Waterloo and Perimeter Institute), former president of both CSCA and the Canadian Association of Physicists.
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5:30 PM: Pre-Event Meal at UBC
Dinner
Meals will include excellent opportunities to converse with local scientists, our guest speaker, and fellow attendees, with discussion questions at each table.
Register here ($10 | $5 for students | dinner ticket sales end Jan 27 at noon).
Registration is required for meals only, not for attending the public events
7:30 PM: Time and Eternity
God has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end. (Ecclesiastes 3:11, NIV)
The concept of time is foundational in both science and faith. We use it to measure change and to reflect upon our own existence. But what is time? And what is eternity? I will present our modern understanding of time — its origin, direction, measurement, perspectives and destiny — from a scientific viewpoint, raising several questions for theological reflection and scientific inquiry. Topics in cosmology, quantum physics, and relativity will be explored to highlight both the advancements and limitations in our knowledge of time.
Robert B. Mann has a B.Sc. in physics from McMaster University and an M.Sc. and Ph.D from the University of Toronto, and was a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University.
Currently a Professor of Physics at the University of Waterloo, he has been a visiting professor at Harvard University, Cambridge University, the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics, MacQuarie University, the Universite de Francois Robillard at Tours, the University of Queensland, Adolfo Ibanez University, and Pontifica Universidad Catholica de Valparaiso.
Author of over 450 papers with more than 20,000 citations (Google Scholar) thus far in his career, he has received several awards, including a Fulbright Fellowship, two Teaching Excellence awards from the Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance and from the University of Waterloo, a Graduate Supervision Excellence Award, and Outstanding Referee Awards from the American Physical Society and the European Physical Society (twice). He was to be the recipient of the 2019 Medal of Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching from the Canadian Association of Physicists, and last year was awarded the University of Waterloo’s highest honour, the “University Professor” distinction.
He has given over 100 invited conference presentations, over 150 invited seminars and colloquia, and over 40 invited community talks in his career.
He was chair of the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Waterloo from 2001-2008 and is an Affiliate Member of the Perimeter Institute and the Institute for Quantum Computing. He is a past-President of the Canadian Association of Physicists and of the Canadian Scientific & Christian Affiliation (1996-2005), a former chair of the Board of Directors of the CAP Foundation, and has served on over thirty university committees and has as well been a member on three Canadian (chairing one) and two American grant selection committees. His research interests are in black holes, cosmology, particle physics, quantum foundations, and quantum information. He is married to a retired Mennonite pastor, and they have one married daughter and son-in-law. He likes movies, travel, cycling, hiking, music, photography, and acting, and has been active in churches his entire life, primarily in volunteer Christian education.