International Conference
The Origins and Evolution of Space-Time

IRAFS (The International Research Area on the Foundations of Sciences)
Pontifical Lateran University
November 27 – 28, 2018

In the motivations for the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics awarded to Rainer Weiss, Barry C. Barish, and Kip S. Thorne, “for decisive contributions to the LIGO detector and the observation of gravitational waves” the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences stated: “On September 2015, the universe’s  gravitational waves, which were predicted by Albert  Einstein a hundred years ago, came from a collision between black holes. It took 1.3 billion years for the waves to  arrive at the LIGO detector in the USA”. After this first observation others followed during the last years that are changing deeply our scientific cosmology, inaugurating a new age in the so-called “cosmology of precision”. That is, a cosmology become a “Galileian science”, because not only based on mathematical models, but also on precise measurements  confirming or refuting the mathematical hypotheses.

As the press release of Caltech announcing the Nobel Prize to its three professors stated, “the observation of gravitational waves, ripples in the fabric of space and time (…), provided astronomers with an entirely new set of tools with which to probe the cosmos. Previously, all astronomy observations
have relied on light — which includes X-rays, radio waves, and other types of electromagnetic radiation emanating from objects in space — or on very-high-energy particles called neutrinos and cosmic rays. Now, astronomers can learn about cosmic objects through the quivers they make in space and time”. Aim of this Conference is debating between theoretical physicists and philosophers of nature about the different aspects of the work in progress for the construction of a reliable theory of “quantum gravity”.

The amazing ontological and epistemological consequences of these discoveries could be indeed that the origins and the evolution of the space-time structure of our universe have ultimately a dynamic (causal) explanation…

• Conference Program – November 27-28

Contacts
damodio@pul.it – irafs@pul.it
www.pul.it

IRAFS (The International Research Area on the Foundations of Sciences) was founded in 1996 at the Lateran University by Ennio De Giorgi (Scuola Normale Superiore of Pisa), Edward Nelson (University of Princeton) and Gianfranco Basti. It is devoted to promoting interdisciplinary studies and events between pure and applied mathematical sciences and philosophy, from the standpoint of the foundational issues in both (www.irafs.org ).

Scientific Committee

Gianfranco Basti (Lateran University)
Francesco Guerra (La Sapienza University)
Flavia Marcacci (Lateran University)
Sarah Jones Nelson (Princeton University)
Christopher G. Tully (Princeton University)
Giuseppe Vitiello (Salerno University)

Organizing Committee
Gianfranco Basti
Alfonso D’Amodio
Flavia Marcacci
Mauro Oliva
Emanuele Sedran

Conference Venue
Pontifical Lateran University
Piazza S. Giovanni in Laterano 4 – 00120 Vatican City