This autumn, the Collège de France and the Bibliothèque nationale de France are offering a series of scientific lectures based on exceptional documents from their heritage collections, presented to the public on this occasion. Four professors from the Collège de France will evoke the history of science through their personal affinities with great texts. They will offer a reading of the texts that reflects their personal tastes, their imagination and their research practice.
Literature and philosophy irrigate the questioning of scientific research. Can a 1978 Oulipian bestseller shed light on our understanding of modern embryology, or is a translation of Isaac Newton by an Enlightenment scientist still a reference fortoday's physicists? We'll also discover how a prehistoric soap opera from the early 20th century has had a lasting impact on our representations of the first men, or how a young physicist prince was awarded the Nobel Prize for his discovery of the wave-like nature of electrons.
Four professors present their subjective readings of great texts, at the crossroads of their intimate tastes, their imaginations and their research practice.
List of sessions:
- "A history of gravity. With Isaac Newton and Émilie du Châtelet"
Françoise Combes
November 7, 2024 - 12.30 pm - 2.00 pm
- "The triumph of the embryo: an epic without surprises. With Isidore Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, Denis Diderot and Georges Perec"
Denis Duboule
November 21, 2024 - 12.30 pm - 2.00 pm
- "Prehistory, a dream space. With Jacques Boucher de Perthes, Pierre Boitard and Rosny aîné"
Jean-Jacques Hublin
December 5, 2024 - 12.30 pm - 2.00 pm
- "1924, when matter becomes a wave. With Louis de Broglie"
Jean Dalibard
December 19, 2024 - 12.30 pm - 2.00 pm
