Etienne Klein

Biography

An alumnus of the École Centrale de Paris and Doctor of Philosophy of Science, Etienne Klein heads the matter science research laboratory at CEA. He is a professor at the ECP and hosts the program La conversation scientifique on France Culture. In 1994, he published Conversations avec le Sphinx. Les paradoxes en physique, his first book. Numerous publications follow, including Il était sept fois la révolution. Albert Einstein et les autres… in 2005, Le facteur temps ne sonne jamais deux fois in 2007, Discours sur l’origine de l’Univers in 2010, Anagrammes renversantes ou Le sens caché du monde in 2011, D’où viennent les idées (scientifiques)? and En Chercher Majorana. Le physicien absolu, in 2013, Le monde selon Étienne Klein in 2014… He took part in Objectif Mont-Blanc, sur les traces d’un géant, a program produced by Arte in 2015. A mountaineer and endurance sports enthusiast, he has been taking part in the Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc races for several years now. Etienne Klein was named Chevalier de la Légion d’honneur in 2010, then Officier dans l’ordre national du Mérite and Commandeur des Palmes académiques in 2014.

Conference: What does the polysemy of time reveal to us?

We think of time but don’t really know what it is: is it a substance? A fluid? An illusion? Or a social construct? Some commonly-used quotations suggest that it is a physical entity, while others assert the opposite. For example, time can be described as a fragment of our imagination, or as part of a natural process. So, basically, what does time look like? Is it as our language suggests? Is it the product of our perception or experience? Is it as physicists represent it? Or is it what philosophers describe?