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Wittgenstein and Physics Conference that I'm speaking at:

I lead off this event, on 22 Nov., in Oxford, at the brand new St Cross Centre for the History & Philosophy of Physics (HAPP) at the University of Oxford:

10.30 am WELCOME

10.45 am Dr Rupert Read - How to Admire Science and Despise Scientism: Wittgenstein's Contribution to the Great Challenge of His Time and Ours

11.30 am Professor Martin Kusch - Wittgenstein, Einstein, Metrology

12.15 pm Professor Carlo Penco - The Influence of Einstein on Wittgenstein's Thought Experiments

1 pm LUNCH BREAK

2 pm Dr Chon Tejedor - The Early Wittgenstein on Induction and the Principles of the Natural Sciences

2.45 pm Dr Richard Staley - Boltzmann, Mach and Wittgenstein's Vienna

3.30 pm TEA/COFFEE BREAK

4 pm Professor John Preston - Wittgenstein, Jeans and Eddington

4.45 pm Summary of the Day's Proceedings

The key to this inaugural event is its role as an exemplar of the interdisciplinary approach of our new HAPP Centre to the chosen fields of interest (i.e. physics, philosophy and history). Also the very nature of Wittgenstein's career provides a unique progession through various of the key developments in both physics and philosophy in the late 19th and 20th centuries. e.g. from his early years in Boltzmann's Vienna, to study in Planck's (and then Einstein's) Berlin, then onto Rutherford's Manchester and eventually to join the cohort of great physicists in Cambridge in the 1930s and 1940s.
Free. All welcome.

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