On Thursday, March 11, 2010, two physicists-GP-B Principal Investigator, Francis Everitt, from Stanford and Sir Roger Penrose from Oxford-will jointly be awarded the ninth annual Trotter Prize at Texas A&M University. The annual Trotter event includes both a cash prize to the recipient(s) and an endowed public lecture series.
The Trotter Prize in Information, Complexity and Inference is awarded annually for pioneering contributions to the understanding of the role of information, complexity and inference in illuminating the mechanisms and wonder of nature.
The Trotter Lecture seeks to reveal connections between science and religion, often viewed in academia as non-overlapping, if not rival, worldviews. For this year's Trotter Lecture, both Everitt and Penrose will speak on this topic. Everitt's talk, entitled "Mystery in Science, Reason is Religion," will explore how mystery and moral discipline permeate both science and religion and how reason affects each in the context of Christian faith. Penrose's talk, entitled " Did the Universe Have a Beginning?" will explore the philosophical implications of conformal cyclic cosmology (CCC), which Penrose offers as an alternative scheme to the prevailing Big Bang theory.