Freeman Dyson, a world-renowned physicist, mathematician and commentator, will participate in a panel discussion from 4:30-6 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 2 in Buckley Center Auditorium on the University of Portland campus, 5000 N. Willamette Blvd. The event is free and open to the public.
Dyson’s appearance on campus precedes a talk he is giving at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall in downtown Portland at 7 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 3. The University of Portland is one of several co-sponsors of that lecture, titled, “Rethinking Science and Society.”
Dyson’s appearance at the Schnitzer is part of Oregon’s Linus Pauling Memorial Lectures Series, sponsored by the Institute for Science, Engineering and Public Policy.
His appearance at the University of Portland is designed to be a dialogue with professors on topics he writes about, including genetics, the environment, religion, and physics. The faculty panel will include Rev. Tom Hosinski, C.S.C., of the Theology Department; Steven Kolmes of the Environmental Science Department; Barbara Breen of the Physics Department; and Ami Ahern-Rindell of the Biology Department. Additional questions will come from students involved in the University Tri-Beta Biological Honor Society.
Dyson, now retired, is a former professor of physics at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton University. He has also served as a professor at Cornell University. He is the author of a number of books about science for the general public, including Disturbing the Universe and Weapons of Hope.
He notes that his book, The Sun, the Genome and the Internet, “describes a vision of green technology enriching villages all over the world and halting the migration from villages to megacities. The three components of the vision are all essential: the sun to provide energy where it is needed, the genome to provide plants that can convert into chemical fuels cheaply and efficiently, the Internet to end the intellectual and economic isolation of rural populations. With all three components in place, every village in Africa could enjoy its fair share of the blessings of civilization.”
Among his most useful contributions to science was the unification of the three versions of quantum electrodynamics invented by Feynman, Schwinger and Tomonaga. Dyson serves as a member of the American Physical Society, the US National Academy of Sciences, and the Royal Society of London. In 2000, he was awarded the Templeton Prize for progress in Religion.
For more information please contact Marlene Moore at (503) 943-8708 or at moore@up.edu.