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ICREA-CCCB Debates

Quantum Physics: Understanding the Invisible

ICREA-CCCB Debates 2019

What are the foundations of quantum physics? Why is it said that it has turned our ideas about reality upside down? In this year’s ICREA-CCCB Debates, we are going to join eminent researchers in approaching the principles of quantum physics and the reasons behind its growing influence in the world today.

Quantum physics, possibly one of the most complex scientific disciplines, is difficult to understand, partly because it describes a reality that is present but hidden from our senses: the reality of the smallest known particles. Moreover, the principles governing this subatomic world contradict experience of reality on the human scale. Concepts like randomness, superposition, and splitting, which only seem valid in science-fiction imagery, define the functioning of the world of particles and thus completely overturn our knowledge about nature’s foundations. However, besides the theory and its complexity, quantum physics has also been the matrix of a great technological revolution which has a powerful influence in the geopolitics and economy of the present-day world.

What, then, are the foundations of quantum physics? How has it transformed our knowledge of reality, from the most basic particles through to the whole universe? Are we entering a new era ruled by quantum technology? All these and other questions will be discussed in these ICREA-CCCB debates in the presence of internationally renowned researchers moderated by the physicist and scientific populariser Irene Lapuente.

This activity is part of Quantum, ICREA-CCCB Debates

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