|
The 24th annual Montreal-Rochester-Syracuse-Toronto (MRST) Conference
on Theoretical Physics
was held at Perimeter Institute on May 15-17, 2002. This
was the first conference hosted by the new Institute and was held in memory of
George Leibbrandt,
an outstanding Canadian theorist (and frequent MRST participant). He played a
vital role in all aspects of the founding of the Institute and served on its
Board of Directors. It is a most fitting tribute to George that MRST has
extended its orbit beyond its four founding universities to include Perimeter
Institute.
Participants: 73 physicists
from over 25 universities and research institutes from Canada, the United States
and Russia. Traditionally, MRST meetings have focused on topics in
theoretical high energy physics, but in keeping with the wider range of research
activity at Perimeter Institute, the scope of MRST-02 reflected a broader range
of topics in theoretical physics, including talks on general relativity, quantum
gravity, quantum computation and high Tc superconductivity. As
always, this informal conference encouraged the active participation of many
graduate students and postdoctoral researchers.
Plenary Speakers: Steve Giddings (UC Santa
Barbara) spoke on the possible detection of microscopic black holes at the LHC.
Juan Maldacena (IAS) spoke on the recently discovered
equivalence between certain strongly coupled gauge theories and quantum gravity
with a negative cosmological constant. Perimeter's own Lee Smolin
spoke on recent developments in the understanding of quantum gravity
with a positive cosmological constant. Finally, showcasing the world-class
physics that is already being done in the local region, two plenary speakers
gave stimulating experimental talks. Dick Bond (CITA
& University of Toronto) discussed the latest understanding of the
cosmological parameters obtained from new data from the BOOMERANG experiment.
Art MacDonald (SNO and Queen's University) spoke on the
recent exciting results from the SNO neutrino detector.
Acknowledgements: Thanks to Janet
Fesnoux
for her aid in anticipating and carrying out a myriad of organizational
tasks. Rita Schwander helped in manning the registration
table and overseeing the catering. John McCormick and
Dmitry Brovkovitch gave technical support
setting up the computer facilities and audio-visual systems. Further, we ne
|