Overview
The 641th WE-Heraues-Seminar on "Do Black Holes Exists? - The Physics and Philosophy of Black Holes" is kindly funded by the Wilhelm and Else Heraeus Foundation and will be held April 24 - 28, 2017, at the Physikzentrum of the German Physical Society in Bad Honnef, located at the River Rhine near to Bonn and Cologne.
The evidence for the existence of Black Holes received a strong boost with the direct detection of gravitational waves which perfectly fit to the simulation of the merger of two Black Holes with masses of around 30 to 40 Solar masses. Further evidence for their existence is given by the observation of stars around the Sagittarius A*, the center of our galaxy, the observation of radiation from accretion disks around many massive galactic Black Holes, high energetic jets emerging from the near vicinity of Black Holes. We are also waiting for further evidence based on new observations with the Event Horizon Telecope and the Black Hole Cam. However, despite these overwhelming observations there is still the question of the interpretation: How shall we deal with the situation that no Black Hole can be observed directly? This question will be discussed by experts from the observations, from the mathematical and theorerical aspects of Black Holes, as well as from the philosophy of sciences.
In our Seminar we will treat
- the current status of observations and future plans
- Black Hole solutions of gravitational field equations and their properties
- Physical effects in the vicinity of Black Holes
- the philosophy of Black Holes
The program consists of invited as well as contributed talks and posters. We particularly encourage female scientist to contribute to the seminar. For young scientists we will award the best poster with a price.
The number of participants is limited to about 70. All local costs (meals and accommodation) of the participants will be covered by the WE-Heraeus foundation. The application deadline is February 26th, 2017.