Time is fundamental to our understanding of the world, but our grasp of this familiar concept is far from complete.
Spend an evening with us exploring interpretations of time from different perspectives including music, dance, psychology and a talk by Nobel Prize winning physicist, Professor Brian Josephson from the University of Cambridge.
This event brings speakers from a broad range of disciplines on the captivating, yet elusive, subject of time. It is part of a day-long programme who are experts in mathematics, physics, philosophy, performing arts, linguistics, and psychology.
Registration for the evening programme begins at 16.30 and the formal event concludes at 19.30, followed by a drinks reception.
Please refer to the event website for information about the daytime and evening programme, including registration via Eventbrite, which is open to all.
Order and change: the end of an error?
Professor Brian Josephson FRS, University of Cambridge; Nobel laureate in Physics (1973)
Since the time of Newton, physicists have taken it for granted that change is governed by some specific formula, an assumption that has now become problematic. An alternative, which incidentally challenges the view that we live in a meaningless reality, has as its basis the idea that reality is much influenced by the way parts work together to form wholes.
Beating time
Nick Roberts, Cellist, Coull Quartet, Quartet-in-Residence at the University of Warwick
A musician’s relationship with time is predominantly a practical one. Explore the nature of time in music from a performer’s point-of-view, looking at ways in which musicians perceive and ‘keep’ time, how they try to escape from the constraints of time, and how the success of a performance can often depend on the performer being able temporarily to suspend time for the listener.
The Spoon lecture: Relativity and anchors in time
Nicky Clayton FRS, Professor of Comparative Cognition, University of Cambridge
Clive Wilkins, Artist in Residence, Department of Psychology, University of Cambridge
Einstein supposedly said~ Time only exists to prevent everything from happening at once. Although physical time proceeds forever forwards, mental time can travel backwards as well, indeed in every direction. Mental time travel allows us to re-visit our memories and imagine future scenarios. We make use of this process to define multiple realities; ones that define our sense of self in space and time. Our cognitive mechanisms for making sense of the world around us are aided and abetted by the patterns and ideas we use in our thinking, the way we choose to see the world around us and, importantly, the objects with which we choose to associate.