Peter Galison : « Temps de la physique, temps de l’art »
A l’occasion de l’invitation à l’Université Paris Diderot du Professeur Peter Galison (Harvard University), l’Institut des Humanités de Paris est heureux de vous convier à la conférence inaugurale du cycle « Humanités et Sciences » :
Peter Galison : « Temps de la physique, temps de l’art »
Mercredi 8 octobre 2014, 17h-19
Salle Pierre-Gilles de Gennes
Université Paris Diderot, bâtiment Condorcet
La conférence aura lieu en français. Elle sera suivie d’une table ronde avec Thomas Coudreau (UFR Physique), Joëlle Le Marec (UFR LAC) et Nadine de Courtenay (Département HPS).
Abstract : In the standard picture of the history of special relativity, Henri Poincaré’s and Albert Einstein’s reformulation of simultaneity is considered a quasi-philosophical intervention, a move made possible by his dis-connection from the standard physics of the day. Meanwhile, Einstein’s engagement at the Patent Office (or Poincare1s in the Bureau of Longitude) enter the story as lowly day jobs, irrelevant to fundamental work on the nature of the world. I have argued, on the contrary, that the all-too material and the most abstract notions of time cross in essential ways. In a collaboration with the artist William Kentridge (“The Refusal of Time”) we explored this intersection, pushing on history, physics, and philosophy into a more associative-imaginative register. From there, I will speak briefly about a new film I am completing, “Containment,” about the struggle to contain radioactive materials for a time equal to that of human history. This talk is an account of this complex of time problems at the boundary of art, physics and history.
