Date: 16 October
Hour: 6 p.m.
Venue: Abreu Faro Amphitheatre, Interdisciplinary Building, Alameda Campus (attendance is free)

«Our species seems to be conditioned to expand its boundaries, which is to say that we place an enormous, almost supernatural value on the creation of new things, of something we haven’t been taught. We do this individually and alone. And we also do it with others, in collaboration. Where does this compulsion come from? One answer lies in the idea that creation decreases entropy. That, somewhere, it gives shape to something, ordered, crystallized. And that, somehow, it contradicts the second law of thermodynamics, of life, that everything will become more disordered, more confused.

When does this transition occur? When can a mind change things around it and create something new?

Over the course of ten years, Vítor Cardoso, a Distinguished Professor at Instituto Superior Técnico and Director of the Center of Gravity at the Niels Bohr Institute, and artist Ana Carvalho have collected descriptions of the origin of ideas in physics. Some of these stories were written by Técnico colleagues, others by Nobel laureates, and still others by doctoral students. This effort led to the book “The birth of an idea,” now published by Gradiva.

The book launch ceremony will be held in the Abreu Faro Amphitheatre on 16 October, at 6 p.m., and will feature a conversation between Henrique Leitão, science historian and Pessoa Prize winner, Teresa Firmino, head of the science section of the Público newspaper, and Vítor Cardoso.»