Name: The Evolution of Knowledge - A Scientific Meeting in Honor of Jürgen Renn
Start: 2025-07-14T08:00:00+02:00
End: 2025-07-16T22:30:00+02:00
Location: SISSA

The Evolution of Knowledge - A Scientific Meeting in Honor of Jürgen Renn

from Monday, July 14, 2025 (8:00 AM) to Wednesday, July 16, 2025 (10:30 PM)

Monday, July 14, 2025

9:00 AM Welcome & Introduction
Welcome & Introduction
9:00 AM - 9:30 AM
Room: Main Hall
9:30 AM
9:30 AM - 11:45 AM
Room: Main Hall
Contributions

9:30 AM Chair: Benjamin Steininger - Benjamin Steininger

9:35 AM On cognitive artefacts - Stephen Levinson (Director Emeritus, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics)

10:05 AM The tangled roots of the mathematics of the 17th-century Scientific Revolution - Jens Høyrup (Honorary Research Fellow, Institute for the History of Natural Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences)

10:30 AM Inheritance and innovation: casting technology and craft production of bronzes in Shang dynasty (16th BC-11th BC), China - Yu Liu (Institute of Archaeology, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing)

11:15 AM Discussion - Svend Hansen
11:45 AM Lunch Break
Lunch Break
11:45 AM - 2:00 PM
Room: Main Hall
2:00 PM
2:00 PM - 4:40 PM
Room: Main Hall
Contributions

2:00 PM Chair: Robert Schulmann

2:05 PM Theatre of science. Solving mathematical problems in early modern jesuit colleges - Rivka Feldhay (Associate Professor, Cohn Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Ideas, Tel Aviv University.)

2:35 PM Geopraxis - Pietro Daniel Omodeo

3:25 PM Chair: Jürgen Jost

3:30 PM Scale and information-processing thresholds in Holocene social evolution - David Wolpert (professor at the Santa Fe Institute)

3:50 PM Discussion - Jürgen Jost Pietro Daniel Omodeo Robert Schulmann
7:00 PM Evening concert
Evening concert
7:00 PM - 9:00 PM
Luca Lombardi’s concert performed by Alessandra Ammara. (pianist). Introduced by Marco Maria Tosolini, Professor of the “Tartini Conservatory” of Trieste
Tuesday, July 15, 2025
9:30 AM
9:30 AM - 12:15 PM
Room: Main Hall
Contributions

9:30 AM Chair: Gabriel Motzkin - Gabriel Motzkin

9:35 AM Science and the industrial revolution - Wolfgang Lefèvre (Emeritus Scholar, Max Planck Istitute for The History of Science)

9:55 AM Means and ends in the history of science - Peter McLaughlin

10:20 AM Two views of excellence in research, two views of zionist nation-building: pure mathematics at the Hebrew University, applied mathematics at the Weizmann Institute - Leo Corry (Full Professor, Faculty of Humanities, History & Philosophy of Science Inst., Tel Aviv University)

11:00 AM Engineering musical aesthetics: science, technology, and the trautonium" - Myles Jackson ( Professor of the History of Science at the Institute for Advanced Study)

11:25 AM Mathematics as a tool: Galilei and Huygens on the hanging chain - Tilman Sauer (Professor of History of Mathematics and Natural Sciences at Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz)

11:45 AM Discussion
12:15 PM Lunch Break
Lunch Break
12:15 PM - 2:00 PM
Room: Main Hall
2:00 PM Institutional Organization of Knowledge
Institutional Organization of Knowledge
2:00 PM - 4:00 PM
Room: Main Hall
Contributions

2:00 PM Chair: Massimiliano Badino - Massimiliano Badino

2:05 PM "Reflections in tranquillity” on the “Evolution of Knowledge”: Random remarks on “easy and not so easy” achievements and goals - Fabio Bevilacqua

2:35 PM Combining physics and politics during the Cold War: The role of international scientific networks and institutions - Roberto Lalli

3:30 PM Discussion
7:00 PM Evening Lecture - Ten words on school and university - Nuccio Ordine - Pierluigi Vercesi Stefano Ruffo Nuccio Ordine
Evening Lecture - Ten words on school and university - Nuccio Ordine
- Pierluigi Vercesi
- Stefano Ruffo
- Nuccio Ordine
7:00 PM - 8:00 PM
Wednesday, July 16, 2025
9:40 AM The Spread of Knowledge
The Spread of Knowledge
9:40 AM - 10:25 AM
Room: Main Hall
Contributions

9:40 AM Chair:Gerd Grasshoff - Gerd Grasshoff

9:45 AM How many climate zones? The spread of cosmographic knowledge in the early modern period - Matteo Valleriani

10:05 AM The “Iron-eating bird” on the Silk Roads: the cross-cultural study of circulation of ostrich diet myths - Wei Chen
10:25 AM Science and Society
Science and Society
10:25 AM - 10:45 AM
Room: Main Hall
Contributions

10:25 AM What did Urban VIII and Galileo discuss during the “six long meetings” in 1624? - Kostas Gavroglu (National and Kapodistrian University of Athens)
10:45 AM
10:45 AM - 12:40 PM
Room: Main Hall
Contributions

11:00 AM Re-orienting studies of knowledge dissemination in and from Islamicate societies - Sonja Brentjes (Max Planck Institute for the History of Science)

11:30 AM Alphabets, dictionaries and grammars - Jens Braarvig (University of Oslo)

11:50 AM Speaker: José Montesinos - José Montesinos

12:10 PM Discussion - Matteo Valleriani
12:40 PM Lunch Break
Lunch Break
12:40 PM - 2:00 PM
Room: Main Hall
2:00 PM Knowledge Evolution and the Anthropocene
Knowledge Evolution and the Anthropocene
2:00 PM - 4:10 PM
Room: Main Hall
Contributions

2:00 PM Chair: Elena Bougleux - Elena Bougleux

2:05 PM Earth System science in political context - Ursula Klein (Senior research scholar at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science)

2:40 PM Speaker: Ricarda Winkelmann/Manfred Laubichler - Ricarda Winkelmann

3:00 PM Crises and the Anthropocene - Ana Simões Maria Paula Diogo

3:20 PM Discussion

3:45 PM Closing Remarks - Bernd Scherer
7:00 PM Book presentation “Einstein on Einstein” - Vincenzo Barone Jürgen Renn Hanoch Gutfreund
Book presentation “Einstein on Einstein”
- Vincenzo Barone
- Jürgen Renn
- Hanoch Gutfreund
7:00 PM - 8:00 PM
8:30 PM Ottodix - Entanglement - Special concert
Ottodix - Entanglement - Special concert
8:30 PM - 9:30 PM