Elon professor and alumnus host workshop in Washington D.C.

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Professor of Physics Pranab Das and Daniel Blair ’97, an associate professor of physics at Georgetown University are in the second year of a three-year grant to study Active Matter, a unique type of material with internally active parts that underlies the dynamics of every living being. Their team is researching the physics of this material and exploring its implications for philosophical approaches to materialism.

From June 11 to 16 they will be hosting a three-part gathering at Georgetown University involving 30 graduate students and 20 faculty. The graduate students will be taking part in two “summer school” programs, advanced intensive study of materials science and philosophy. Concurrently, a team of the senior scholars will hold a closed-door study session with the intention of laying out a “white paper” detailing the key questions and research agendas central to revising contemporary philosophy of science to account for this novel and important form of matter.