ISSYP 2011

Sarah Croke - is a postdoctoral researcher at Perimeter Institute. From Ireland and the UK originally, she received a BSc in Physics and Applied Mathematics from University College Cork, Ireland in 2003. After a brief stint as a radio astronomer, completing an MSc in Astrophysics, she studied Quantum Information and Quantum Optics under the supervision of Prof Stephen Barnett at the University of Strathclyde, UK, receiving a PhD in 2007. She has been a postdoc at PI since November 2007. She works in quantum information theory, and is interested in both theoretical and experimental aspects. Roger Colbeck - I completed my PhD in theoretical physics at the University of Cambridge in 2006, and was for one year a junior research fellow at Homerton College, Cambridge before moving to ETH Zurich in 2007. Having been a postdoctoral researcher there for two and a half years, I moved to Perimeter Institute, where I have been since. I do research in quantum information theory and quantum foundations.

Throughout history science has aimed at unification, whereby more phenomena are explained by more fundamental theories with simpler principles. We will discuss how string theory aims at being the ultimate unified theory of all elementary forces in nature.

Assuming that you are really (really) strong, what are the biggest objects in the Universe that hold together enough that you could throw them? What are they made of and why are they so big? In this talk, I will show how studies of the large scale structure of the Universe enable us to reconstruct the initial conditions at the Big-Bang and test the fundamental laws of physics. Among other things, scientist are trying to test one of the most provocative idea of modern physics: the possibility that these huge "things" actually originated from quantum fluctuations smaller than anything we have ever detected!