Nobel Foundation's Nobel Symposia coming to Africa for the first time

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The first symposium in the series will be held at STIAS in Stellenbosch from 24 to 28 October. It will focus on the area of Physics, and more specifically the topic 'Predictability in science in the age of artificial intelligence'.

The Nobel Symposia are ordinarily closed sessions where some of the world’s top scientists deliberate on new research discoveries and developments in their field. The STIAS-SU-hosted Physics symposium, however, will include an outreach element that will see participants delivering public lectures at universities and research institutes countrywide as a way of taking science to a wider audience. The public outreach lectures are aimed at university academic staff and students to inspire the next generation of scholars on the continent, while also raising awareness of the latest scientific discoveries among the general public.

Ahead of the launch event and the start of the 183rd Physics symposium next week, members of the media are invited to participate in the outreach lectures to get a sense of physicists’ current work (programme follows below).

In conversation with internationally renowned and celebrated scientists and global change agents, the Nobel in Africa symposia seek to celebrate science and share breakthroughs with the scholarly, public and private sectors in South Africa and Africa. The aim is to provide an international forum to promote the sharing of innovative, high-level scholarship and demonstrate the importance of scientific research for the future of the continent and the world.

STIAS has a special focus on Africa and a long-term commitment to nurture future generations of scholars and intellectual leaders on the continent. Our ethos is to foster ongoing dialogue between Africa’s brightest minds and their global counterparts.

183rd NOBEL SYMPOSIUM: Physics – outreach programme

Several public outreach lectures will take place both before and after the Physics symposium. See the full outreach programme below and attached:

18 Oct, 5pm–6.30pm, University of the Western Cape
Public outreach lecture by Yin-Zhe Ma (University of KwaZulu-Natal)

20 Oct, 1pm–2pm, University of Cape Town
Public outreach lecture by Viatcheslav Mukhanov (LMU, Munich)

20 Oct, 6pm–7.30pm, Stellenbosch University
Public outreach lecture by Erik Aurell (KTH Royal Institute of Technology)

21 Oct, 4.30pm–7pm, Nelson Mandela University
Public outreach lecture by Neil Turok (University of Edinburgh), with an introductory talk by Thifhelimbilu Daphney Bucher (Cape Peninsula University of Technology)

21 Oct, 11am–12pm, African Institute for Mathematical Sciences (AIMS)
Public outreach lecture by Francesco Petruccione (Stellenbosch University)

24 Oct, 4.30pm–6pm, Stellenbosch University
Public outreach lecture by Sir Michael Berry (University of Bristol)

31 Oct, 1pm–2.30pm, University of KwaZulu-Natal
Public outreach lecture by Neil Turok (University of Edinburgh) and Armita Nourmohammad (University of Washington)

31 Oct, 6pm–7.50pm, University of KwaZulu-Natal
Public outreach lecture by Mogens H. Jensen (University of Copenhagen) and Angelo Vulpiani (National Institute for Nuclear Physics, Rome)

1 Nov, 10am–12pm, University of KwaZulu-Natal
Public outreach lecture by Erik Aurell (KTH Royal Institute of Technology) and Luca Gammaitoni (NiPS Lab, University of Perugia)

2 Nov, 4pm–5pm, University of the Witwatersrand
Public outreach lecture by Armita Nourmohammad (University of Washington)