Welcome to the Berkeley Center for Theoretical Physics!
The Berkeley Center for Theoretical Physics was created to address many of the fundamental questions of the new century involving matter and spacetime. The Center aims to attract the very top young researchers in the field, as faculty, postdoctoral fellows and visiting scholars and to create an exciting environment fostering creative new ideas. Experts on particle physics, cosmology and string theory, traditional strengths of Berkeley, will be housed together in a single new Center.
The BCTP has as its predecessor the Oppenheimer Center, created by a generous gift from Robert R. and Jane Wilson, and followed by a number of donors. It supported a cozy seminar room where countless excited and fruitful discussions took place. The Center is an outgrowth of that initiative.
The BCTP will support two distinguished five-year fellows and one regular three-year postdoctoral fellow to attract the best young minds. It will bring active researchers from all over the world through its vigorous visiting scholar program. Weekly seminars will allow members to be at the forefront of research. These activities are supported by private donors.
In this fashion, we continue with the great tradition in theoretical physics at Berkeley, leading to the next breakthroughs. All research product will be public through world-wide web, seminars, and publications.
Berkeley CTP Opening Symposium
Amazing opening of the Berkeley Center for Theoretical Physics!
The BCTP Opening Symposium was held on Oct 19 and 20, 2007. It gathered more than 120 participants who celebrated "a new center for the community" (Vafa). The pictures from the event can be seen here, and the presentations here. One of the highlights was a public lecture by David Gross, who, according to our chairwoman Frances Hellman, deserves our admiration not just for winning the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2004 but also for getting arrested at Sproul Hall back in 1964. You can watch the video of his lecture from the same page.
Thank you to all who came to the exciting event, and to those who couldn't, enjoy the show.