Newswise — Prof. Frank Wilczek, Nobel laureate, distinguished theoretical physicist and noted author, will give Perimeter Institute's next public lecture on Wednesday, November 5.

Entitled "Anticipating a New Golden Age" , Prof. Wilczek's lecture will discuss the Large Hadron Collider's potential impact on the standard model. Our present Core Theory of matter (aka "standard model" ) was born in the 1970s, a Golden Age for fundamental physics. To date it has passed every experimental test, extending " by many orders of magnitude " to higher energies, shorter distances, and greater precision than were available in the 1970s. Yet we are not satisfied, because the Core Theory postulates four separate interactions and several different kinds of matter, and its equations are lopsided. On November 5, Prof. Wilczek will describe powerful and extremely beautiful ideas for restoring unity and symmetry to the fundamental laws. These ideas are firmly rooted in empirical reality, but at present the evidence for them is circumstantial. The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) will provide critical tests. If Nature has been teaching, not teasing, discoveries at the LHC will inaugurate a new Golden Age, bringing our fundamental understanding of the physical world to a new level.

Additional details about Prof. Wilczek and this presentation can be found at http://www.perimeterinstitute.ca

ABOUT PERIMETER INSTITUTE:Canada's Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics is an independent, non-profit, scientific research and educational outreach organization where international scientists cluster to push the limits of our understanding of physical laws and develop new ideas about the very essence of space, time, matter and information. The award-winning research centre provides a multi-disciplinary environment to foster research in areas of Cosmology, Particle Physics, Quantum Foundations, Quantum Gravity, Quantum Information, Superstring Theory, and related areas. The Institute, located in Waterloo, Ontario, also provides a wide array of educational outreach activities for students, teachers and members of the general public in order to share the joy of scientific research, discovery and innovation. In partnership with the Governments of Ontario and Canada, Perimeter Institute continues to be a successful example of private and public collaboration in science research and education.