Reflections of a Physicist on the Cultural Ocean of His Time

Abstract

The purpose of knowledge is to understand our world in the context of an evolving body of ideas, actually in a physical Universe in continuous transformation. Thus, science, a privileged form of enquiry, should be a homogeneous and interconnected endeavour spanning from physics and chemistry to biochemistry and biology, from biology to human and social sciences. In this talk we shall approach, through an impressionistic personal view, the similarities and the differences of development of the various branches of science. We shall briefly discuss how this cross-sectional view might map the way on how to overcome the great challenges and crossroads of our time.