Massachusetts Institute of Technology

MIT 3-270   

6:00 pm 

A lecture by Fr. Thomas Davenport, OP (PhD, Stanford University) 

Co-sponsored by the Tech Catholic Community and the Graduate Student Council

Lecture Description:

The advent of quantum mechanics a century ago overturned the deterministic assumptions of classical physics and seemed to put randomness and uncertainty at its core. Neither the determinism of the old paradigm nor the randomness of the new one seem conducive to the ancient idea of free will. What exactly is free will and does physics, of any stripe, leave any more room for it?

Speaker Bio:

Fr. Thomas Davenport, O.P., received his B.S. in physics at Caltech in 2004 and his Ph.D. in physics from Stanford University in 2010, working in theoretical particle physics. He subsequently entered the Order of Preachers and was ordained to the priesthood in 2017. He has written and spoken on the relationship of faith and science in a variety of venues, including being a main contributor to the Thomistic Evolution project. Currently he is studying Philosophy at the Catholic University of America.