Speaker: Giuseppe Mussardo (SISSA & INFN)
Date: September 23, 2025, 15:00
Location: Instituto de Física Teórica (Blue Room), Calle Nicolás Cabrera 13-15, Cantoblanco, Madrid
Free entry until full capacity. The talk will be given in English.
Event description:
In 2025 we celebrate the centenary of quantum mechanics. A scientific revolution that forever changed our vision of the universe and the very concept of reality. To mark this, the IFT hosts the public lecture “God plays dice with the world. The story of quantum mechanics” given by Giuseppe Mussardo, theoretical physicist, professor at SISSA (Scuola Internazionale Superiore di Studi Avanzati) in Trieste and researcher at INFN (Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare) in Italy. He is known for his work in quantum mechanics, statistical physics, and quantum field theory, as well as being a great science communicator and author of several books on the history and philosophy of physics.
What is matter? A question that has fascinated — and at times tormented — some of the brightest minds of the twentieth century. Max Planck, Albert Einstein, Niels Bohr, Erwin Schrödinger, Werner Heisenberg, Max Born, Wolfgang Pauli, and Paul Dirac all grappled with it, debating fiercely, colliding over equations and experiments, in their attempt to decipher the very essence of physical reality.
Out of this intellectual struggle was born quantum mechanics, a theory that unveils a microscopic universe ruled by probability — an outcome that Einstein found so unsettling that he refused to accept its philosophical implications.
A century after its first complete formulation, in this seminar we retrace the history of this scientific revolution through its protagonists and its places: from the hushed courtyards of Cambridge colleges to the windswept cliffs of Helgoland, amid biographies worthy of an adventure novel and exchanges of fiery letters. The result is a captivating narrative that pays tribute to an unrepeatable season in the history of science.
