What Breakthroughs in Science Can We Reasonably Predict? with Olival Freire Jr.
What Breakthroughs in Science Can We Reasonably Predict? with Olival Freire Jr.
7,00€
January 16, 2021: It is much easier to talk about advances in the field of science in the past than to guess about its future. The case of Lord Kelvin’s 1900 statement concerning the two little clouds that still obscured the sky of physics, and that would eventually be resolved into revolutionary theories—special relativity and quantum mechanics—is a well-known example of this. While risky, guesses about the future of science are appealing. Indeed, dramatic change is a recurrent theme in science studies as illustrated by Thomas Kuhn’s ideas on shifting paradigms in scientific revolutions as well as by several other authors who elaborated different views on the subject. Informed guesses about the future of science breakthroughs—e.g. in quantum computers, quantum gravity and cosmology—is the subject of this conversation. Olival Freire Jr. PhD is a Professor of Physics and History of Physics at the Universidade Federal da Bahia, Brazil.
Length: 1 hour 45 mins
