11:30 am – 12:30 pm | Inaugural Lecture

Life in the Digital Time Machine

Speaker: Helga Nowotny, Vienna, Austria

The convergence between abundant data, unprecedented computational power and algorithms trained through Deep Learning boosts the current digital transformation which pervades our societies and economies and upsets the world order. It alters our individual and collective temporalities by radically changing the temporal structures and relationships between humans and machines. The digital time machine(s) currently in the making are based on AI functioning as prediction machines which will make decisions (and data) cheaper and the economy more efficient. But living with and inside prediction machines implies living in a deterministic world, in which time-to-X appears as preformed and automated. Digital time machines are set to deepen further the digital divide, fragmenting societies into parallel worlds with people living in data-rich and data-poor time zones. Life chances will be even more unequally distributed if these time-zones are temporally non-interoperable.  

How will the dynamics of digital temporalities unfold seen in the light of co-evolution between humans and machines? Can we infuse a humanistic dimension into the Digital Time Machine, the eigenzeit for the digital age?

2:00 – 4:15 pm | Scientific Session I – Time in Physics

Attoclock and Tunneling Time: Time Measurements in Quantum Mechanics

Speaker: Ursula Keller, Zurich, Switzerland

How long is a tunnel or an ionization event? While this question sounds simple, one has to clearly define what one means by “how long” or “how fast” to prevent misunderstandings. Tunneling and ionization is inherently a quantum mechanical process and quantum mechanics gives us statistical or probabilistic descriptions. Therefore a rate can be easily determined and has a clear meaning. With regards to the specific time delay of a single process there remains a heated debate. With some arguing that because time is not an observable in quantum mechanics such questions are not allowed to be asked. Others on the other hand argue that we should simply follow the electron wavepackets and their group delays will determine the ionization delay.

The latter is not always true and can lead to misleading results because there is no “conservation law” for the peak or the center of the wavepacket. The time-dependent Schrödinger Equation (TDSE) in most cases cannot be solved without approximations. Semi-classical models, on the other hand, seem to explain suprisingly well many current attosecond measurements. This talk will review the recent progress in attosecond measurements in quantum mechanics with regards to tunneling and ionization time delays.

Embarking on a Journey through Time to the Big Bang

Speaker: Felicitas Pauss, Geneva, Switzerland

Our journey through time to the Big Bang – an archaeology of the universe – takes us from the cosmic infinitely large dimensions of our visible universe to the infinitely small dimensions at the very first moments after the Big Bang.Particle accelerators such as the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN, located at the Swiss - French boarder close to Geneva, are super-microscopes that allow us to explore the microcosm. With the LHC we study in-depth the interactions between the basic building blocks of matter. Furthermore, the important questions of new forms of matter and new symmetries can also be investigated. However, the LHC is also a "time machine" that enables us to study the physical laws of the first moments after the Big Bang. The lecture will shed light on the current status and future prospects of this fascinating research. The connection between basic research and innovation plays just as important a role as the interplay of major international collaborations.

The Arrow of Time

Speaker: Wolfgang P. Schleich, Ulm, Germany

Many fundamental equations of physics such as Newton’s law of classical mechanics or Maxwell’s equations of electrodynamics are time invariant. Indeed, a movie showing a phenomenon from these fields when run backwards will also be consistent with these laws. However, in daily life time always progresses forward and we cannot travel back into the past. This fact is summarized by the phrase arrow of time.

In this talk we present several suggestions for arrows of time and then turn to the Gödel universe. Stimulated by discussions with Albert Einstein the mathematician Kurt Gödel discovered in 1949 an exact cosmological solution of Einstein's field equations of gravitation with closed world lines. Therefore, general relativity does not exclude time travel and one could in principle go back into one's own past. We use computer animations to illustrate this unusual universe.

4:45 – 6:15 pm | Scientific Session II – Time in Chemistry and Biology

Time and the Origins of Biological Complexity

Speaker: Paul B. Rainey, Plön

Life is hierarchically structured, with replicating entities nested within higher order self-replicating structures.  Take, for example, multicellular life: the multicellular entity replicates, as do the cells that comprise the organism.  Inside cells are mitochondria that also have capacity for autonomous replication; the same is true of chromosomes within the nucleus, and of genes that comprise chromosomes.  Such hierarchical structure reflects a series of major evolutionary transitions in which lower order self-replicating entities became subsumed within higher order structures.  Crucial for each transition was the establishment of conditions that allowed selection to operate over timescales longer than the replication rate of lower level particles.  Giving prominence to often overlooked ecological factors, I will discuss how timescales of relevance to evolution arise, and the impacts of multiple timescales on the evolution of life’s complexity, including its hierarchical structure.

Multi-Resolution and Timescale Simulation of Biomolecular Systems: A Review of Methodological Issues

Speaker: Wilfred F. van Gunsteren, Zurich, Switzerland

Theoretical-computational modelling with an eye to explaining experimental observations in regard to a particular chemical phenomenon or process requires choices concerning essential degrees of freedom and types of interactions and the generation of a Boltzmann ensemble or trajectories of configurations. Depending on the degrees of freedom that are essential to the process of interest, for example, electronic or nuclear versus atomic, molecular or supramolecular, quantum- or classical-mechanical equations of motion are to be used. In multi-resolution simulation, various levels of resolution, for example, electronic, atomic, supra-atomic or supra-molecular, are combined in one model. This allows an enhancement of the computational efficiency, while maintaining sufficient detail with respect to particular degrees of freedom. The basic challenges and choices with respect to multi-resolution modelling will be reviewed.

8:15 pm | Evening Lecture

Rhythm, Timing, and Movement: How the Brain Responds to Musical Rhythm

Speaker: Jessica Grahn, London, UK / Ontario, Canada

Moving to music is an instinctive, often involuntary activity, experienced by those in all cultures. The talk will take a neuroscientific perspective on why humans may move to music, and how the brain’s movement centres light up in response to music and rhythm, even when we aren’t moving a muscle. Do those individuals who have trouble moving to the beat still feel compelled to move to it? We will discuss individual variation, and the importance of considering the individual when exploring the exciting potential held by some musical interventions for those with degenerative neurological diseases such as Parkinson’s disease.