CERN Library | Events in November
Bill Thompson, journalist and technology critic, talks about "Building a Digital Public Space" | Book presentation: "The Island of Knowledge: the limits of science and the search for meaning" by Marcelo Gleiser | Book-launch apéritif with Johann Rafelski, editor of "Melting Hadrons, Boiling Quarks - From Hagedorn Temperature to Ultra-Relativistic Heavy-Ion Collisions at CERN".
>>> Bill Thompson, journalist and technology critic, talks about "Building a Digital Public Space".
Monday, 2 November - 3.30 p.m.
Room Georges Charpak (room F)
https://indico.cern.ch/event/457358/
In 2003, journalist and technology critic Bill Thompson coined the phrase ‘the dot.commons’ to describe the open, enabling public online space that the internet made possible, and expressed his concern that pressures from government and commercial players were limiting its potential. The dot.commons is now usually referred to as the Digital Public Space, but the principles are the same, and both his hopes and fears have been realised.
In this talk, Bill Thompson will describe the evolution of the model of the DPS and explore some potential online futures that might emerge, considering how people will engage online as media converge, access becomes pervasive and interactions rely on digital networks, and what that might mean for the wider society. The original paper can be found here.
Bill Thompson is a well-known technology journalist and advisor to arts and cultural organisations on matters related to digital technologies. He appears weekly on Click on BBC World Service radio and writes a monthly column for Focus magazine. He is Head of Partnership Development for the BBC Archive, a member of the boards of Writers’ Centre Norwich, Britten Sinfonia and The Collections Trust, and a Visiting Professor at the Royal College of Art.
>>> Book presentation: "The Island of Knowledge: the limits of science and the search for meaning" by Marcelo Gleiser.
Thursday, 12 November - 4 p.m. to 5.30 p.m.
Library (52-1-052)
Coffee will be served at 3.30 p.m.
https://indico.cern.ch/event/457320/
To be human is to want to know, but what we are able to observe is only a tiny portion of what’s “out there”. Brazilian theoretical physicist Marcelo Gleiser traces our search for answers to the most fundamental questions of our existence and reaches a provocative conclusion: science, the main tool we use to find answers, is fundamentally limited. Our tools of exploration limit the precision of our perceptions, and the nature of physical reality (the speed of light, the uncertainty principle, the impossibility of seeing beyond the cosmic horizon, the incompleteness theorem) just adds to our own limitations as an intelligent species. These limitations, though, constitute neither a deterrent to progress nor a surrender to religion. Rather, they free us to question the meaning and nature of the universe while affirming the central role of life and ourselves in it. Science can and must go on, but recognising its limits reveals its true mission: to know the universe is to know ourselves.
Telling the dramatic story of our quest for understanding, "The Island of Knowledge" offers a highly original exploration of the ideas of some of the greatest thinkers in history, from Plato to Einstein, and how they affect us today. An authoritative, broad-ranging intellectual history of our search for knowledge and meaning, "The Island of Knowledge" is a unique view of what it means to be human in a universe filled with mystery.
"The Island of Knowledge: the limits of science and the search for meaning", by M. Gleiser, Basic Books, 2014, ISBN 9780465031719.
>>> Book-launch apéritif with Johann Rafelski, editor of "Melting Hadrons, Boiling Quarks - From Hagedorn Temperature to Ultra-Relativistic Heavy-Ion Collisions at CERN".
Friday, 13 November - 12 noon to 12.30 p.m.
CERN Council Chamber
As a prelude to the "Hagedorn's Legacy" workshop - to be held in the afternoon of the same day - Johann Rafelski will briefly present a new book, largely conceived as a tribute to Rolf Hagedorn. He will provide his personal experience in preparing such a project and collecting many contributions from eminent colleagues in the field. Enjoy his insights and anecdotes with a glass of wine and small snack.
by CERN Library
