A Special Series of Live Events in New York City with some of the Great Minds of our Generation

NEW YORK, Aug. 21, 2023 /PRNewswire/ — The World Science Festival, the premier gathering bringing cutting-edge science to public audiences, has unveiled its first live events in New York City since the pandemic, an extended weekend of programming moderated by the Festival’s Co-Founder, renowned Columbia University physicist and author, Brian Greene, exploring cosmology, quantum reality, black holes, string theory, unification, and artificial intelligence, comprising a kickoff for the Festival’s planned yearlong series of live and digital offerings.

The Festival’s programming will run from Thursday, September 21 through Sunday, September 24 and will feature premier pathbreaking thinkers including winners of the Nobel Prize, the Fields Medal, the Turing Prize, the Breakthrough Prize, and the MacArthur Fellowship, as well as bestselling authors and younger researchers blazing the next generation’s trail toward the future. 

Tracy Day, four-time National Emmy Award Winning journalist, who is the Co-Founder and CEO of the World Science Festival, drives the Festival’s creative content with a prime focus on threading deep scientific insights through smart, entertaining, and richly visual programs. “We are thrilled to invite New Yorkers to engage with world-leading thinkers in explorations of mind, matter and the cosmos—the first of our Festival events that we will offer throughout the coming year.” 

Day noted that with the growth of the Festival’s digital presence, having now exceeded more than a quarter of billion online views, the Festival will continue to produce both live and digital programs, encouraging a worldwide audience “to be champions of scientific truth and human curiosity.”

“Now more than ever we need to celebrate the capacity of science to reveal the unexpected wonders of reality, inspiring the next generation to harness the tools of rational thought and exquisite experimentation to shape the future and grapple with the big questions that define our place in the cosmos,” said Brian Greene. “The astonishing progress already achieved reveals the enormous capacity of humankind to achieve the seemingly impossible.”

The Festival programs will include:

AI: Grappling with A New Kind of Intelligence: What do the stunning advances in AI tell us about intelligence itself and how can we best harvest these developments to shape a safe and fertile future? Participants include AI pioneer Yann LeCun, winner of the Turing Award (computer science’s equivalent to the Nobel); Microsoft Senior Principal Researcher Sébastien Bubeck, and tech ethicist Tristan Harris.

Searching for Cosmic Origins: The powerful blending of theory and observation has catapulted cosmology from campfire storytelling to precision science, which is now closing in on the beginning of time. Participants include Breakthrough Prize winner Jo Dunkley, Nobel Laureate Adam Riess, and MacArthur Fellow Eva Silverstein.

Navigating the Quantum Universe: Researchers known for their vivid and accessible accounts of complex scientific ideas lead a mind-bending journey to the forefront of the strange and mysterious realm of quantum reality. Participants include physicists and bestselling authors Sean Carroll and Carlo Rovelli, and philosopher of physics Elise Crull.

Unifying Nature’s Laws: The State of String Theory: One of the most influential groups of theorists ever assembled on a single stage explores the current state of one of the most ambitious and contentious theories of the modern age, String Theory. Participants include Nobel Prize winner David Gross, Breakthrough Prize winners Andrew Strominger and Cumrun Vafa, and Fields Medalist Edward Witten.

Extending Einstein: Black Holes, White Holes, and Dark Energy: Renowned researchers explore the wondrous implications of gravity pushed to the extremes. Participants include Blavatnik Award winner Claudia de Rham, Breakthrough Prize winner Shep Doeleman, Newton Lacy Pierce Prize winner Erin Kara, and bestselling author Carlo Rovelli.

Reimagining Time: A Cyclic Universe: Proponents of a universe that undergoes cycles of expansion and contraction, perhaps for all time, make the case for a new kind of cosmology. Participants include MacArthur Fellow Peter Galison, Lise Meitner Excellence winner Anna Ijjas, and Dirac Medalist  Paul Steinhardt. 

Standing on the Shoulders of Giants featuring Nobel Laureate and long-time lead scientist for the James Webb Space Telescope,  John Mather. 

For program details and to purchase tickets, visit: https://www.worldsciencefestival.com

For media inquiries or to request credentials, contact: press@worldsciencefestival.com

About World Science Festival
Originally known for its groundbreaking week-long live festivals placing science at the cultural core of New York City, the World Science Festival (WSF) has grown into a year-round innovative multi-media organization that produces original content straddling science, technology, the arts, media, performance, journalism and education, with formats ranging across vibrant discussions and debates, to inspired collaborative works of theater, film and music. Featuring outstanding talent and novel production techniques, WSF’s programming brings the most far-reaching and transformative ideas, discoveries and perspectives to a broad general audience. WSF’s live events in more than a dozen countries have garnered an in-person audience of over three million and its digital, educational and broadcast programming has received over 250 million views. 

World Science Festival Thanks Its Generous Supporters

Founding Benefactors
Simons Foundation
John Templeton Foundation
Alfred P. Sloan Foundation

Major Supporters
Con Edison
Ann Ziff
Della Pietra Family Foundation
Verizon

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SOURCE The World Science Festival