|
 |
March 22, 2005
Whitworth, Gonzaga University to Co-Host Whitworth College and Gonzaga University will co-host "Physics & the God of Abraham V: Historically Speaking," a three-part lecture series April 4-6, that explores the relationship between faith and science. For more information, please e-mail faithandreason@gonzaga.edu. The series is free and open to the public, and is sponsored by Betty S. Wheeler, the Weyerhaeuser Center for Christian Faith and Learning at Whitworth (www.whitworth.edu/FaithCenter), and the Gonzaga University Faith and Reason Institute (www.gonzagafaithreason.org). Believers in the God of Abraham - the theistic Creator-God of the Jewish, Christian, and Islamic traditions - face the challenge of integrating their faith with a scientific understanding of the universe. In particular, the lecture series will explore the historic interplay between Christianity and science. Following is the lecture-series schedule:
Owen Gingerich is a senior astronomer emeritus at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory and Research Professor of Astronomy and of the History of Science at Harvard University. He has served as vice president of the American Philosophical Society (America's oldest scientific academy), chairman of the U.S. National Committee of the International Astronomical Union, councilor of the American Astronomical Society, and organizer of its Historical Astronomy Division. In 2000 he won the HAD's Doggett Prize for his contributions to the history of astronomy. In addition to publishing more than 500 technical or educational articles and reviews, Gingerich's writings about astronomy have been published in several encyclopedias and journals. His research interests have ranged from the recomputation of an ancient Babylonian mathematical table to the interpretation of stellar spectra. Two anthologies of his essays have been published: The Great Copernicus Chase and Other Adventures in Astronomical History (Cambridge University Press), and The Eye of Heaven: Ptolemy, Copernicus, Kepler (American Institute of Physics' Masters of Modern Physics series). Stephen M. Barr, Ph.D., is a theoretical particle physicist at the Bartol Research Institute of the University of Delaware. Barr's research interests and contributions span the areas of grand unified theories, the problem of the origin of quark and lepton masses, theories with extra space-time dimensions, and the relationship between physics and cosmology. His published physics articles include "A New Symmetry Breaking Pattern for SO(10) and Proton Decay"; "Kaluza Klein Cosmologies and Inflation, A Minimality Condition and Atmospheric Neutrino Oscillations"; "Anthropic Coincidences"; and a recent book, Modern Physics and Ancient Faith (University of Notre Dame Press). Contacts: Brian Clayton, associate professor of philosophy at Gonzaga University, (509) 323-6744 or clayton@calvin.gonzaga.edu. | |