4 December 2025

3:25 PM – 4:10 PM

Amphi Petit Kursaal

Hervé Zwirn

Hervé Zwirn was Associate Professor at the Physics Department of the University of Paris 7 and Director of Research at the CNRS. He is currently a research associate at the Centre de mathématiques appliquées de l’École normale supérieure de Paris Saclay and at the Institut d’histoire et de philosophie des sciences et des techniques de l’université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne. His work focuses on the foundations of quantum physics.

Can science define its own limits?

Will science be able to progress towards total knowledge, enabling us to understand and predict everything? Alas, no! Surprisingly, it is science itself that is capable of setting limits to its own power. In both mathematics and physics, there are things we will always miss. How is this possible? Twentieth-century science, in its immense progress, has brought to light areas in which a certain physical uncertainty about the future will always remain, and mathematical statements that are true but cannot be proven. We explore these fascinating intrinsic limits.