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SUMMARY:Beauty & Truth - Professor Lord Robert May of Oxford\, University 
 of Oxford
DTSTART:20110121T173000Z
DTEND:20110121T183000Z
UID:TALK26418@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Janet Gibson
DESCRIPTION:Biography\n\nRobert McCredie May\, Lord May of Oxford\, OM AC 
 Kt FRS\, holds a Professorship jointly at Oxford University and Imperial C
 ollege\, London and is a Fellow of Merton College\, Oxford.    He was Pres
 ident of The Royal Society (2000-2005)\, and before that Chief Scientific 
 Adviser to the UK Government and Head of the UK Office of Science and Tech
 nology (1995-2000).  His career includes a Personal Chair in Physics at Sy
 dney University aged 33\, Class of 1877 Professor of Zoology at Princeton\
 , and in 1988 a move to Britain as Royal Society Research Professor.  Part
 icular interests include how dynamical systems are structured and respond 
 to change\, particularly with respect to infectious diseases and biodivers
 ity.  Honours include: the Royal Swedish Academy’s Crafoord Prize\, the 
 Swiss-Italian Balzan Prize\, the Japanese Blue Planet Prize\, and the Roya
 l Society’s Copley Medal\, its oldest (1731) and most prestigious award.
 \n\n\nAbstract\n\nThis lecture will begin by distinguishing three differen
 t kinds of “truths”:  First\, the apodictic truths of mathematics\; se
 cond\, the experimentally-tested but always contingent truths of the scien
 ces\; and the unshakable truths of fixed belief systems.  I will then atte
 mpt to convey some of the pure beauty which mathematical truths can have\,
  and discuss ways in which such beauty has – and has not – been a usef
 ul guide to scientific understanding of the nature of the world around us.
   I will also offer some speculations on the evolutionary origins of “fa
 ith-based truths”.
LOCATION:LMH\, Lady Mitchell Hall
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