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Posted on ST. MARY’S CITY, Md. (Feb. 09, 2010) — What does the future have in store for humanity? How do we go about accurately predicting it? How much of it, in fact, can be foretold? St. Mary’s College of Maryland Professor of Physics Charles Adler will describe what can and cannot be anticipated using the laws of nature at the 2010 Steven Muller Distinguished Professor Lecture entitled “The World of the Future” at 7 p.m. Wednesday, February 24, at Daugherty-Palmer Commons. The lecture is free and open to the public. “Predicting the future,” Dr. Adler said, “is a dangerous game, because it's always more complicated than we imagine it to be. Things which seemed like certainties in the 1950s, like alien contact and Moon bases, still haven't happened. But there are some things which are predictable because they are firmly based on well-understood laws of nature.” Dr. Adler will describe what we know about the future using simple ideas such as the conservation of energy, the increase in entropy over time, and the speed of light (the ultimate speed limit of the Universe). Dr. Adler, also chair of the Natural Science & Mathematics Colloquium series, is connected with the atomic physics laboratory at the Patuxent River Naval Air Station and has been the principal investigator on research grants for studies in rainbow refractometry and development of atomic physics projects. He is also the organizer of the 2010 "Light and Color" conference being held at St. Mary's College in June, 2010. The Muller Distinguished Professorship of Sciences honors faculty whose accomplishments in the sciences establishes their expertise in a field of research. |