Carlo Rovelli, leading physicist and author of the best-seller Seven Brief Lessons on Physics, will give a free public lecture entitled Why Physics Needs Philosophy on Sunday, 17 July from 7:30-9pm.

A book-signing will take place after the lecture.

The talk: Once again, Physics is facing foundational questions: What is the nature of time? What is the nature of space? How did the Universe begin? What is the role of the mind in the description of reality? Can we understand Nature just in terms of elementary constituents? Questions of this sort cannot be addressed without philosophical awareness, and an increasing number of physicists are once again reading philosophy, as did the great scientists of the past, searching for ideas, for conceptual clarity, for methodological awareness. The conversation between Physics and Philosophy, which has produced some of the most successful ideas of the history of science, is restarting. In the talk Rovelli illustrates a few of its topics: focusing in particular on the nature of space and the nature of time.