Tag Archives: gravitation

Second Hermann Minkowski Meeting on the Foundations of Spacetime Physics, Albena, Bulgaria

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The Second Hermann Minkowski Meeting on the Foundations of Spacetime Physics will commemorate the 110th anniversary of the publication of Minkowski’s lecture “Space and Time” in 1909, which presented the novel ideas of the four-dimensional physics of spacetime. In addition to technical papers on areas related to Minkowski’s contributions to the foundations of spacetime physics and on modern ramifications of his ideas, contributions on closely related topics will be also welcome.

In addition to talks and poster sessions, special tea coffee hours will be included in the program to stimulate more informal discussions among the participants. For this reason we encourage interested colleagues to attend the meeting even if they do not plan to give a talk.

Contributed papers in the form of extended abstracts from one to two standard pages should be emailed by Thursday, February 28, 2019 to minkowski2019[AT]minkowskiinstitute.org. Submissions will be reviewed and notification of acceptance will be given by Friday, March 15, 2019.

Scientific Organizing Committee:

Abhay Ashtekar (Penn State University)
Dennis Dieks (Utrecht University)
George F. R. Ellis (University of Cape Town)
Valeria Ferrari (University of Rome “La Sapienza”)
David Garfinkle (Okland University)
Robert Geroch (University of Chicago)
James Isenberg (University of Oregon)
Claus Kiefer (University of Cologne)
Vesselin Petkov (Minkowski Institute, Montreal)
Carlo Rovelli (Centre de Physique Theorique de Luminy)
Mairi Sakellariadou (King’s College London, University of London)
James Owen Weatherall (University of California, Irvine)
Nick Woodhouse (University of Oxford, Clay Mathematics Institute)
Christian Wuethrich (University of Geneva)

2019 Awards for Essays on Gravitation

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In 2019, for our seventieth competition, the trustees of the Gravity Research Foundation are offering five awards for short essays for stimulating thought and encouraging work on the phenomenon of gravitation. The stipulations follow:

(1) We will make these Awards on May 15, 2019 for the best and most well-written essays about gravitation, its theory, applications or effects. Essays should be 1500 words or fewer excluding abstracts and a small number of equations, diagrams, tables and references. The subject matter may or may not be original research. The essay competition is not intended to replace a research journal where the detailed results of original research are submitted. Essays should not give lengthy detailed mathematical calculations nor detailed descriptions of an experimental setup. Essay ideas should be self-contained and understandable – not dependent on reading other documents.

(2)
The First Award will be $4000.00
The Second Award will be $1250.00
The Third Award will be $1000.00
The Fourth Award will be $750.00
The Fifth Award will be $500.00

(3) Essay must be in English and e-mailed in a single PDF file before April 1, 2019. One essay only will be accepted from each author. Notify us within 24 hours if you do not receive an e-mail confirmation of your submission.

(4) Title page should include all the following: essay title, authors’ names (specify corresponding author), e-mail & complete mailing addresses, submission date, an abstract of 125 words or fewer, and the statement: “Essay written for the Gravity Research Foundation 2019 Awards for Essays on Gravitation.” Pages should be numbered.

(5) The decision of the judges will be final, and no reviews or comments will be provided.

(6) Please check the winners’ announcement to be posted on our website: www.gravityresearchfoundation.org around May 15, 2019. We will also attempt to send all participants a general e-mail notification.

(7) The five award-winning essays will be published in a special issue of the International Journal of Modern Physics D (IJMPD). Authors of essays designated Honorable Mention will be invited to submit their essays to the IJMPD where these may undergo additional refereeing at editorial discretion for possible publication. Authors of all other essays are free and encouraged to publish their essays after May 15th.
Submission e-mail address: George M. Rideout, Jr., President, grideoutjr[AT]aol.com

Recent First Award Winners:
2018 – Jessica Santiago & Matt Visser, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand
2017 – Ivan Agullo, LSU; Adrian del Rio & Jose Navarro-Salas, Centro Mixto Universidad de Valencia-CSIC, Spain
2016 – Stephen L. Adler, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, New Jersey
2015 – Gerard ‘t Hooft, Utrecht University & Spinoza Institute, the Netherlands
2014 – Lawrence M. Krauss, Arizona State University & Frank Wilczek, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
2013 – Baocheng Zhang, Qing-yu Cai, Ming-sheng Zhan, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan and Li You, Tsinghua University, Bejing, PR China
2012 – Claus Kiefer & Manuel Kraemer, University of Cologne, Koeln, Germany
2011 – Ivan Agullo, Penn State & Leonard Parker, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
2010 – Mark Van Raamsdonk, University of British Columbia, Vancouver
2009 – Alexander Burinskii, Russian Academy of Sciences, Russia
2008 – T. Padmanabhan, IUCAA, Pune, India
2007 – S. Carlip, University of California at Davis
2006 – Vijay Balasubramanian, University of Pennsylvania; Donald Marolf, University of California at Santa Barbara & Moshe Rozali, University of British Columbia
2005 – John Ellis, CERN; N. E. Mavromatos, King’s College London & D. V. Nanopoulos, Texas A&M University

Energy conditions in quantum theory and gravity, York, UK (2nd announcement)

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The workshop “Energy conditions in quantum theory and gravity” will be held from September 20-21, 2018 at the University of York (UK) in the historic King’s Manor.

Registration is now open until September 1st. For more information and registration visit the workshop website: https://sites.google.com/a/york.ac.uk/energy-conditions-in-quantum-theory-and-gravity

Classical energy conditions were introduced as a means of codifying generic properties of matter in general relativity. They play key roles in the singularity theorems of Hawking and Penrose and in many other results of mathematical relativity. However, not all models of classical matter obey the pointwise energy conditions, and quantum fields cannot obey any of them. This workshop will address two main themes, bringing together experts in both areas: (a) the use of weakened energy conditions in classical relativity, (b) the Quantum Energy Inequalities that can be proved for various quantum field theory models, and their consequences. In addition, related topics in mathematical relativity and quantum field theory will be discussed.

This workshop also falls in the 40th anniversary year of the first paper on energy inequalities in quantum field theory. [LH Ford, Proc.Roy.Soc.Lond. A364 (1978) 227-236]

Invited speakers:

Erik Curiel (University of Munich)
Larry Ford (Tufts University)
Stefan Hollands (Leipzig University)
Jorma Louko (University of Nottingham)
Ken Olum (Tufts University)
Nicola Pinamonti (University of Genoa)
Ko Sanders (Dublin City University)
Robert Wald (University of Chicago)
Aron Wall (Stanford University)
Elizabeth Winstanley (University of Sheffield)

Organizers:

Christopher Fewster (University of York)
Eleni-Alexandra Kontou (University of York)

Funded by Marie Sklodowska Curie fellowship grant 744037

Energy conditions in quantum theory and gravity, York, UK

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The workshop “Energy conditions in quantum theory and gravity” will be held from September 20-21, 2018 at the University of York (UK) in the historic King’s Manor.

Registration is now open until September 1st. For more information and registration visit the workshop website: https://sites.google.com/a/york.ac.uk/energy-conditions-in-quantum-theory-and-gravity

Classical energy conditions were introduced as a means of codifying generic properties of matter in general relativity. They play key roles in the singularity theorems of Hawking and Penrose and in many other results of mathematical relativity. However, not all models of classical matter obey the pointwise energy conditions, and quantum fields cannot obey any of them. This workshop will address two main themes, bringing together experts in both areas: (a) the use of weakened energy conditions in classical relativity, (b) the Quantum Energy Inequalities that can be proved for various quantum field theory models, and their consequences. In addition, related topics in mathematical relativity and quantum field theory will be discussed.

This workshop also falls in the 40th anniversary year of the first paper on energy inequalities in quantum field theory. [LH Ford, Proc.Roy.Soc.Lond. A364 (1978) 227-236]

Invited speakers include:

Erik Curiel (University of Munich)
Larry Ford (Tufts University)
Stefan Hollands (Leipzig University)
Jorma Louko (University of Nottingham)
Ken Olum (Tufts University)
Nicola Pinamonti (University of Genoa)
Ko Sanders (Dublin City University)
Robert Wald (University of Chicago) [tbc]
Aron Wall (Stanford University)
Elizabeth Winstanley (University of Sheffield)

Organizers:

Christopher Fewster (University of York)
Eleni-Alexandra Kontou (University of York)

Funded by Marie Sklodowska Curie fellowship grant 744037

Summer School “The Black Hole Information Loss Paradox”, Bremen, Germany

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The aim of this school is to provide an in-depth overview about recent developments in the field. Starting with a precise formulation of the problem in the first half of the school, we will discuss various solution proposals, with a particular focus on the relation to the BMS-group.

Targeting mainly PhD-students, the material will be covered in form of lectures and discussion sessions.

Related contributions by attendees are also welcome.

Awards for Essays on Gravitation, 2018

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In 2018, for our sixty-ninth competition, the trustees of the Gravity Research Foundation are offering five awards for short essays for stimulating thought and encouraging work on the phenomenon of gravitation. The stipulations follow:

(1) We will make these Awards on May 15, 2018 for the best and most well-written essays about gravitation, its theory, applications or effects. Essays should be 1500 words or fewer excluding abstracts and a small number of equations, diagrams, tables and references. The subject matter may or may not be original research. The essay competition is not intended to replace a research journal where the detailed results of original research are submitted. Essays should not give lengthy detailed mathematical calculations nor detailed descriptions of an experimental setup. Essay ideas should be self-contained and understandable – not dependent on reading other documents.

(2) The First Award will be $4000.00
The Second Award will be 1250.00
The Third Award will be 1000.00
The Fourth Award will be 750.00
The Fifth Award will be 500.00

(3) Essay must be in English and e-mailed in a single PDF file before April 1, 2018. One essay only will be accepted from each author. Notify us within 24 hours if you do not receive an e-mail confirmation of your submission.

(4) Title page should include: essay title, authors’ names (specify corresponding author), e-mail & mailing addresses, submission date, an abstract of 125 words or fewer, and the statement: “Essay written for the Gravity Research Foundation 2018 Awards for Essays on Gravitation.” Pages should be numbered.

(5) The decision of the judges will be final and no reviews or comments will be provided.

(6) Please check the winners’ announcement to be posted on our website: www.gravityresearchfoundation.org around May 15, 2018. We will also attempt to send all participants a general e-mail notification.

(7) The five award-winning essays will be published in a special issue of the International Journal of Modern Physics D (IJMPD). Authors of essays designated Honorable Mention will be invited to submit their essays to the IJMPD where these may undergo additional refereeing at editorial discretion for possible publication. Authors of all other essays are free and encouraged to publish their essays after May 15th.
Submission e-mail address: George M. Rideout, Jr., President, grideoutjr[AT]aol.com

Recent First Award Winners:
2017 – Ivan Agullo, LSU; Adrian del Rio & Jose Navarro-Salas, Centro Mixto Universidad de Valencia-CSIC, Spain
2016 – Stephen L. Adler, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, New Jersey
2015 – Gerard’t Hooft, Utrecht University & Spinoza Institute, the Netherlands
2014 – Lawrence M. Krauss, Arizona State University & Frank Wilczek, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
2013 – Baocheng Zhang, Qing-yu Cai, Ming-sheng Zhan, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan and Li You, Tsinghua University, Bejing, PR China
2012 – Claus Kiefer & Manuel Kraemer, University of Cologne, Koeln, Germany
2011 – Ivan Agullo, Penn State & Leonard Parker, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
2010 – Mark Van Raamsdonk, University of British Columbia, Vancouver
2009 – Alexander Burinskii, Russian Academy of Sciences, Russia
2008 – T. Padmanabhan, IUCAA, Pune, India
2007 – S. Carlip, University of California at Davis
2006 – Vijay Balasubramanian, University of Pennsylvania; Donald Marolf, University of California at Santa Barbara & Moshe Rozali, University of British Columbia
2005 – John Ellis, CERN; N. E. Mavromatos, King’s College London & D. V. Nanopoulos, Texas A & M University
2004 – Maulik Parikh, Columbia University, New York

2017 Awards for Essays on Gravitation

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The trustees are pleased to announce the Awards for Essays for 2017.

1. $4,000 – Gravity and Handedness of Photons by Ivan Agullo[1], Adrian del Rio[2], and Jose Navarro-Salas[2], [1]Department of Physics and Astronomy, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA 70803-4001, [2]Departamento de Fisica Teorica and IFIC, Centro Mixto Universidad de Valencia-CSIC. Facultad de Fisica, Burjassot-46100, Valencia, Spain; e-mail: agullo[AT]lsu.edu, adrian.rio[AT]uv.es, jnavarro[AT]ific.uv.es

2. $1,250 – Spacetime Has a ‘Thickness’ by Samir D. Mathur, Department of Physics, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210; e-mail: mathur.16[AT]osu.edu

3. $1,000 – Black Holes and Hurwitz Class Numbers by Shamit Kachru[1] and Arnav Tripathy[2], [1]Stanford Institute for Theoretical Physics, Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA 94305, [2]Department of Mathematics, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138; Email: skachru[AT]stanford.edu, tripathy[AT]math.harvard.edu

4. $750 – A Proof of the Weak Gravity Conjecture by Shahar Hod, The Ruppin Academic Center, Emeq Hefer 40250, Israel and The Hadassah Institute, Jerusalem 91010, Israel; e-mail: shaharhod[AT]gmail.com

5. $500 – Gravitational Wave – Gauge Field Dynamics by R. R. Caldwell[1], C. Devulder[1], and N. A. Maksimova[2], [1]Department of Physics and Astronomy, Dartmouth College, 6127 Wilder Laboratory, Hanover, NH 03755, [2]Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, MA 02138; e-mail: robert.r.caldwell[AT]dartmouth.edu, christopher.devulder.gr[AT]dartmouth.edu, nina.maksimova[AT]cfa.harvard.edu

Selected for Honorable Mention this year were (listed in alphabetical order): Dharam Vir Ahluwalia; Michele Arzano and Gianluca Calcagni;Valentina Baccetti, Robert B. Mann, and Daniel R. Terno; Ning Bao, Sean M. Carroll, and Ashmeet Singh; W. Barreto, H. P. de Oliveira, and E. L. Rodrigues; John D. Barrow and Chandrima Ganguly; Spyros Basilakos, Vahid Kamali, and Ahmad Mehrabi; David Benisty and E. I. Guendelman; Pablo Bueno and Pablo A. Cano; Alexander Burinskii; F. I. Cooperstock; Maxim Eingorn, Claus Kiefer, and Alexander Zhuk; Netta Engelhardt and Sebastian Fischetti; John Estes, Michael Kavic, Matthew Lippert, and John H. Simonetti; Ricardo Z. Ferreira, McCullen Sandora, and Martin S. Sloth; Arthur E. Fischer; Antonino Flachi and Kenji Fukushima; Wen-Cong Gan and Fu-Wen Shu; Yuan K. Ha; Richard T. Hammond; Johan Hansson and Stephane Francois; Robert J. Hardwick, Vincent Vennin, and David Wands; Nader A. Inan; Nirmalya Kajuri; Archil Kobakhidze, Cyril Lagger, and Adrian Manning; Philip D. Mannheim; Elliot Nelson and C. Jess Riedel; T. Padmanabhan and Hamsa Padmanabhan; Tejinder P. Singh; C. Sivaram; Matt Visser; Asher Yahalom.

This announcement and abstracts of award-winning and honorable mention essays will be posted when ready on our web site, http:/www.gravityresearchfoundation.org. The five award-winning essays will be published in a special issue of the International Journal of Modern Physics D (IJMPD). They will also be posted at a later date on our web site.

New book: General Relativity 1916 – 2016

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General Relativity 1916 – 2016 (Minkowski Institute Press, Montreal 2017) – Selected peer-reviewed papers presented at the Fourth International Conference on the Nature and Ontology of Spacetime, dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the publication of General Relativity, 30 May – 2 June 2016, Golden Sands, Varna, Bulgaria :

http://www.minkowskiinstitute.org/mip/books/2016conf.html

2017 Awards for Essays on Gravitation

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In 2017, for our sixty-eighth competition, the trustees of the Gravity Research Foundation are offering five awards for short essays for the purpose of stimulating thought and encouraging work on gravitation. The stipulations follow.

(1) We will make these Awards on May 15, 2017 for the best well-written essays, 1500 words or fewer (excluding abstracts and excluding a small number of equations, diagrams, figures, references and tables), on the subject of gravitation, its theory, applications, or effects. Essay ideas should be self-contained and understandable – not dependent on reading other documents.

(2)
The First Award will be $4000.00
The Second Award will be 1250.00
The Third Award will be 1000.00
The Fourth Award will be 750.00
The Fifth Award will be 500.00

(3) Essay must be in English and e-mailed in a single PDF file before April 1, 2017. One essay only will be accepted from each author. Notify us within 24 hours if you do not receive an e-mail confirmation of your submission.

(4) Title page should include essay title; authorsﾕ names (specify corresponding author), e-mail and mailing addresses; submission date; an abstract of 125 words or fewer; and the statement: Essay written for the Gravity Research Foundation 2017 Awards for Essays on Gravitation. Pages should be numbered.

(5) The decision of the judges will be final and no reviews or comments will be provided.

(6) Please check the winnersﾕ announcement to be posted on our website: www.gravityresearchfoundation.org around May 15, 2017. We will also attempt to send all participants a general e-mail notification.

(7) The five award-winning essays will be published in a special issue of the International Journal of Modern Physics D (IJMPD). Authors of essays designated Honorable Mention will be invited to submit their essays to the IJMPD where these may undergo additional refereeing at editorial discretion for possible publication. Authors of all other essays are free and encouraged to publish their essays after May 15th.

Submission e-mail address: George M. Rideout, Jr., President, grideoutjr[AT]aol.com

Recent First Award Winners:
2016 – Stephen L. Adler, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, New Jersey
2015 – Gerard ﾕt Hooft, Utrecht University and Spinoza Institute, the Netherlands
2014 – Lawrence M. Krauss, Arizona State University and Frank Wilczek, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
2013 – Baocheng Zhang, Qing-yu Cai, Ming-sheng Zhan, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan and Li You, Tsinghua University, Bejing, PR China
2012 – Claus Kiefer and Manuel Kraemer, University of Cologne, Koeln, Germany
2011 – Ivan Agullo, Penn State and Leonard Parker, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
2010 – Mark Van Raamsdonk, University of British Columbia, Vancouver
2009 – Alexander Burinskii, Russian Academy of Sciences, Russia
2008 – T. Padmanabhan, IUCAA, Pune, India
2007 – S. Carlip, University of California at Davis
2006 – Vijay Balasubramanian, University of Pennsylvania; Donald Marolf, University of California at Santa Barbara and Moshe Rozali, University of British Columbia
2005 – John Ellis, CERN; N. E. Mavromatos, Kingﾕs College London and D. V. Nanopoulos, Texas AandM University
2004 – Maulik Parikh, Columbia University, New York
2003 – Martin Bojowald, The Pennsylvania State University
2002 – Steven B. Giddings, University of California at Santa Barbara and Stanford University

2016 Awards for Essays on Gravitation

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1949 – 2016 SIXTY-SEVEN YEARS

GRAVITY RESEARCH FOUNDATION
PO BOX 81389
WELLESLEY HILLS MA 02481-0004
USA

2016 Awards for Essays on Gravitation

In 2016, for our sixty-seventh competition, the trustees of the Gravity Research Foundation are offering five awards for short essays for the purpose of stimulating thought and encouraging work on gravitation. The stipulations follow.

(1) We will make these Awards on May 15, 2016 for the best well-written essays, 1500 words or fewer (excluding abstracts, diagrams, tables, references and a minimal number of equations), on the subject of gravitation, its theory, applications, or effects.

(2) The First Award will be $4000.00
The Second Award will be 1250.00
The Third Award will be 1000.00
The Fourth Award will be 750.00
The Fifth Award will be 500.00

(3) Essays must be in English and e-mailed in a single PDF file before April 1, 2016. One essay only will be accepted from each author. Notify us within 24 hours if you do not receive an e-mail confirmation of your submission.

(4) Title pages should include essay title; authors’ names, e-mail and mailing addresses; submission date; an abstract of 125 words or less; and the statement: “Essay written for the Gravity Research Foundation 2016 Awards for Essays on Gravitation.” Pages should be numbered and the corresponding author specified where necessary.

(5) The decision of the judges will be final and no reviews or comments will be provided.

(6) Please check the winners’ announcement to be posted on our website: www.gravityresearchfoundation.org around May 15, 2016. We will also attempt to send all participants a general e-mail notification.

(7) The five award-winning essays will be published in a special issue of the International Journal of Modern Physics D (IJMPD). Authors of essays designated Honorable Mention will be invited to submit their essays to the IJMPD where these may undergo additional refereeing at editorial discretion for possible publication. Authors of all other essays are free and encouraged to publish their essays after May 15th.

Submission e-mail address: George M. Rideout, Jr., President, grideoutjr[AT]aol.com

Recent First Award Winners:
2015 – Gerard ’t Hooft, Utrecht University & Spinoza Institute, the Netherlands
2014 – Lawrence M. Krauss, Arizona State University and Frank Wilczek, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
2013 – Baocheng Zhang, Qing-yu Cai, Ming-sheng Zhan, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan and Li You, Tsinghua University, Bejing, PR China
2012 – Claus Kiefer & Manuel Kraemer, University of Cologne, Koeln, Germany
2011 – Ivan Agullo, Penn State & Leonard Parker, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
2010 – Mark Van Raamsdonk, University of British Columbia, Vancouver
2009 – Alexander Burinskii, Russian Academy of Sciences, Russia
2008 – T. Padmanabhan, IUCAA, Pune, India
2007 – S. Carlip, University of California at Davis
2006 – Vijay Balasubramanian, University of Pennsylvania; Donald Marolf, University of California at Santa Barbara & Moshe Rozali, University of British Columbia
2005 – John Ellis, CERN; N. E. Mavromatos, King’s College London and D. V. Nanopoulos, Texas A&M University
2004 – Maulik Parikh, Columbia University, New York
2003 – Martin Bojowald, The Pennsylvania State University
2002 – Steven B. Giddings, University of California at Santa Barbara & Stanford University
2001 – Csaba Csaki & Joshua Erlich, Los Alamos National Lab & Christophe Grojean, University of California at Berkeley