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2019 Series

Nov 2019 Thomas F. Rosenbaum (Caltech) Quantum Annealing and Computation
Oct 2019 Dan Friedmann (Carbon Engineering) Carbon Capture From the Atmosphere: A Solution to Global Warming?
Apr 2019 Roger Penrose (Oxford) Are We Seeing Hawking Points in the Microwave Sky?

2018 Series

Nov 2018 Matthew Fisher (UC Santa Barbara) Are We Quantum Brains, or Merely Clever Robots?
Oct 2018 Rainer Blatt (Innsbruck) The Quantum Way of Doing Computations

2017 Series

Nov 2017 Ken Ono(Emory University)Why does Ramanujan, "The Man Who Knew Infinity", matter?
Oct 2017 Matthias Troyer (Microsoft Research)A Quantum Future of Computation
Apr 2017 Harvey Brown (Philosophy, Oxford)The Many Faces of Time
Mar 2017 John Kormendy (Univ. of Texas, Austin)Supermassive Black Holes
Feb 2017 Prof. Jed Buchwald (History, Caltech)Politics, Morality, Innovation and Fraud in Physical Science and Technology
Jan 2017 Yanbei Chen( Caltech)Gravitational waves:
exploring the extremes of physics and astronomy

2016 Series

Nov 2016 Mark van Raamsdonk (UBC Physics)Gravity and Entanglement
Oct 2016 Andrei Barvinsky (Lebedev Institute, Moscow)Unifying the Universe
Sep 2016 Gloria Platero (Universidad Autonoma, Madrid)Long Range Transfer of interacting fermions in Quantum Dot Arrays
Mar 2016 Honourable Elizabeth May,MP: Climate commitments -- It's not about targets anymore.
Feb 2016 William G Unruh(UBC): Gravitational Radiation is finally detected
Feb 2016 Dennis LehmKuhl(Caltech): What is spacetime? What is gravity?
Jan 2016 Jonathan Bagger(TRIUMF): Particle Physics: What's Next?

2015 Series

Nov 2015 Walter Hardy, Jeremy Heyl, Philip Stamp,Bill Unruh(UBC): AN INFORMAL Pre-CHRISTMAS EVENING with EINSTEIN
Oct 2015 Abhay Ashtekar (Penn State University): Gravitation and the Cosmos:
100 Years after Einstein's Discovery of General Relativity
May 2015 Serge Haroche (College de France, Paris, Nobel Laureate 2012): "Reflections on blue sky research"
April 2015 Serge Haroche (College de France, Paris, Nobel Laureate 2012): Photons in a box and 'Schrodinger Cats' of light
April 2015 Steve Carlip (UC Davis): Quantum Black Holes
Feb 2015 Doug Arion (Carthage Collage): What your mother....er...advisor never told you: The other things we need to learn (and teach) (Physics Department Colloquium)
Feb 2015 Diana Kormos-Buchwald (History, Caltech): In His Own Words: the Collected Papers of Albert Einstein
Feb 2015 Clifford Will (University of Florida): Was Einstein Right? A Centennial Assessment (Physics Department Colloquium)
Jan 2015 Martin T. Barlow (Math, UBC): Random walks, Brownian motion, and Percolation

2014 Series

Nov 2014 Joe Polchinski(KITP, UCSB): Spacetime versus the Quantum
Oct 2014 Bill Unruh (UBC) and Bob Wald (KITP, Enrico Fermi Institute, U Chicago): 100 YEARS of SPACETIME & GRAVITY: an EVENING with BILL & BOB
Sep 2014 J. C. Seamus Davis(Cornell U.; Brookhaven Nat. Lab.; St Andrew's U.): Visualizing the Quantum World
June 2014 Special Lecture
Tony Leggett (Urbana; Nobel Laureate, 2003) and Roger Penrose (Oxford) An Evening on Time
April 2014 David Wallace (Oxford): Quantum measurements and the Many-Worlds Theory
March 2014 David Gross (UCSB; Nobel Laureate, 2004): The Frontier of Fundamental Physics
March 2014 Don Howard (Notre Dame): "Einstein the Philosopher"
Feb 2014 Marcus Aspelmeyer (Vienna): Schroedinger's Mirrors: Confronting Quantum Physics with Gravity

2013 Series

Nov 2013 Colin Gay (UBC): Higgs Boson - and Beyond
Oct 2013 K. Birgitta Whaley (Berkeley): What Role does Quantum Mechanics Play in Biology?

2012 Series

April 2012 Alain Aspect (Paris): From Einstein's questions to quantum bits: a new quantum age?
Mar 2012 Peter G. Wolynes (Rice University): Landscapes of Matter, Energy and Life
Feb 2012 Scott Aaronson (MIT): Quantum Computing and the Limits of the Efficiently Computable
Feb 2012 Jann Tallinn (co-creator, 'Skype' and 'Kazaa'; Bluemoon software) : Planetary Optimization and Advanced General Intelligences: the 'intelligence stairway'
Jan 2012 David Albert (Columbia University): The Difference between the Past and the Future

2011 Series

Dec 2011 Gary Hinshaw (UBC): Taking the Measure of the Universe
Nov 2011 Dirk Bouwmeester (UCSB & Leiden): Quantum Entanglement and Macroscopic Quantum Superpositions
Apr 2011 Klaus Schulten (Urbana): Quantum Computing and Animal Navigation
Mar 2011 Geoff Marcy (Berkeley): Other Earths and Other Life in the Universe
Feb 2011 John Norton (Pittsburg): Atoms, Entropy, & Quanta: Einstein's Statistical Physics of 1905
Jan 2011 Gordon Semenoff (University of British Columbia): Graphene: the Idea, the Material and the Future

2010 Series

Dec 2010 Leo Kadanoff (University of Chicago): Making a Splash — Breaking a Neck: Complexity in Physical Systems
Nov 2010 Robert Wald (University of Chicago): Black Holes
Oct 2010 Harvey B. Richer (UBC): Watcher of the Sky - The Highs and Lows of Being an Observational Astronomer
Apr 2010 John Hopfield (Princeton): What is Thinking? The dynamics of mental exploration
Mar 2010 Jaymie Matthews (UBC): How Science is really done: a story of duels, harems, heroines, and a cold case of murder
Feb 2010 Reviel Netz (Stanford): The Archimedes Palimpsest: Infinite Possibilities
Jan 2010 Brett Finlay (UBC): Battling the Bugs: Confronting the Microbial Menace

2009 Series

Dec 2009 Gabe Aeppli (London): Fighting hospital superbugs with physics
Nov 2009 David Sherrington (Oxford): Physics and Complexity
Apr 2009 Anton Zeilinger: Einstein's Spook put to Work
Apr 2009 Albert Libchaber: The Origin of Life, from geophysics to biology
Mar 2009 Michael Fisher: Pictures, Models, Approximations and Reality: Phase transitions and our understanding of the physical world
Feb 2009 Erich Vogt: The Evolution of Stars and the Creation of the Elements

2008 Series

Dec 2008 Virginia Trimble: The Quest for Other Worlds
Nov 2008 Carl Wieman(Nobel Laureate, 2001): Science Education in the 21st Century: Using the tools of science to teach science
Oct 2008 Art McDonald: Subterranean answers to some very deep questions
Sep 2008Don Eigler: The Small Frontier
Apr 2008Joel L. Lebowitz: Time's Arrow and Boltzmann Entropy
Mar 2008Jim Langer: The Physics of Window Glass
Feb 2008Rob Myers: The Superstring Adventure
Jan 2008Dennis Danielson: The Bones of Copernicus

2007 Series

Dec 2007Stuart Kauffman: Reinventing the Sacred: Breaking the Galilean Spell
Nov 2007Lenny Susskind: Not Your Grandfather's Universe
Oct 2007Lee Smolin: The unfinished revolution: space, time and the quantum
Mar 2007Gordon Belot: Background Independence in Physics
Feb 2007 George Sawatzky: Quantum Materials
Jan 2007 Michel Janssen: At the End of the Rainbow: Optical Dispersion as the Bridge between the Old Quantum Theory and Matrix Mechanics

2005-06 Series

Oct 2005 Moshe Shapiro: Controlling the future: lessons from Quantum Mechanics
Nov 2005 James Hartle: Einstein's Vision and the Quantum Universe
Dec 2005Gerard Milburn: Photons as Qubits: Einstein, Bell, and Beyond
Feb 2006Michel Devoret: Quantum-mechanical electrical circuits
Feb 2006The Honourable Justice Ian Binnie (Supreme Court of Canada): Why Arent the Courts More Science-Friendly?
Mar 2006Carl Wieman (Nobel Laureate, 2001): Bose-Einstein condensation: quantum weirdness at the lowest temperature in the universe
Oct 2006 Wayne Myrvold: Everett and Evidence
Nov 2006 Doug Osheroff(Nobel Laureate, 1996 ): How Advances in Science Are Made
Dec 2006Jed Buchwald: How the Ether Spawned the Microworld

2004-05 Series

Oct 2004 I. Pitowsky: Probability in physics: where does it come from?
Nov 2004 Frank Wilczek(Nobel Laureate, 2004): The World's Numerical Recipe
Dec 2004 P. W. Anderson(Nobel Laureate, 1976 ): Is the theory of everything the theory of anything?
Jan 2005 Alan Shapiro: Wave Particle Duality: From Newton to Einstein
Feb 2005 W. G. Unruh: Is Quantum Mechanics Non-Local?
Mar 2005 Charles Bennett: Quantum Communication Theory
Apr 2005 Simon Saunders: Why is the Universe Left-Handed?
May 2005 Gerard 't Hooft(Nobel Laureate, 1999 ): The Universe Inside an Atom

2003-04 Series

Oct 2003 A. Fine: Entanglement Revisited
Nov 2003 G. Semenoff: SUPERSTRINGS: Are they Nature's Ultimate Building Blocks?
Dec 2003 D. Howard: Who invented the Copenhagen Interpretation? A study in Mythology
Jan 2004 M. Freedman: Exotic States of Matter and Quantum computation
Feb 2004 C. Callender: The Hidden Worlds of Quantum Mechanics
Mar 2004 A. J. Leggett(Nobel Laureate, 2003): Does the Everyday World Really Obey Quantum Mechanics?

2002-03 Series

Oct 2002 J. Clarke: SQUIDs, Axions, and Magnetic Resonance Imaging
Nov 2002 S. Popescu: What is quantum non-locality?
Dec 2002 J. Earman: Spontaneous Symmetry Breaking
Jan 2003 J. Bub: Quantum Foundations in Light of Quantum Information
Feb 2003 H Monoharan: Manipulating Matter at Spatial Limit
Mar 2003 P.C.E Stamp: The Sorceror's Apprentice: A Quantum Parable
Mar 2003 E. Polzik: Entanglement and quantum teleportation of simple macroscopic objects