Tag Archives: Kunsthaus Zurich

Fake facts & untrustworthy predictions

2 Replies

I need to confess to writing a misleading post some months ago entitled ‘In Einstein’s footprints?‘ on February 27th 2019, in which I promoted our 4th workshop on the ‘Validation of Computational Mechanics Models‘ that we held last month at Guild Hall of Carpenters [Zunfthaus zur Zimmerleuten] in Zurich.  I implied that speakers at the workshop would be stepping in Einstein’s footprints when they presented their research at the workshop, because Einstein presented a paper at the same venue in 1910.  However, as our host in Zurich revealed in his introductory remarks , the Guild Hall was gutted by fire in 2007 and so we were meeting in a fake, or replica, which was so good that most of us had not realised.  This was quite appropriate because a theme of the workshop was enhancing the credibility of computer models that are used to replicate the real-world.  We discussed the issues surrounding the trustworthiness of models in a wide range of fields including aerospace engineering, biomechanics, nuclear power and toxicology.  Many of the presentations are available on the website of the EU project MOTIVATE which organised and sponsored the workshop as part of its dissemination programme.  While we did not solve any problems, we did broaden people’s understanding of the issues associated with trustworthiness of predictions and identified the need to develop common approaches to support regulatory decisions across a range of industrial sectors – that’s probably the theme for our 5th workshop!

The MOTIVATE project has received funding from the Clean Sky 2 Joint Undertaking under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 754660 and the Swiss State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation under contract number 17.00064.

The opinions expressed in this blog post reflect only the author’s view and the Clean Sky 2 Joint Undertaking is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information it contains.

Image: https://www.tagesanzeiger.ch/Zunfthaus-Zur-Zimmerleuten-Wiederaufbauprojekt-steht/story/30815219

 

A reflection on existentialism

7 Replies

Detail from stained glass window by Marc Chagall in Fraumunster Zurich from http://www.fraumuenster.ch

I was in Zürich last weekend.  We visited the Fraumünster with its magnificent stained glass windows by Marc Chagall [see my post entitled ‘I and the village‘ on August 14th, 2013] and by Augusto Giacometti (1877-1947).  The Kunsthaus Zürich has a large collection of sculptures by another Giacometti, Alberto (1901-1966), a Swiss sculptor, who is famous for his slender statues of people which portray individuals alone in the world.  He was part of the existentialist movement in modern art that examined ideas about self-consciousness and our relationship to other people.  For me, this echoed a lecture that I contributed last week to a module on Scientific Impact and Reputation as part of our CPD programme [see my post entitled ‘WOW projects, TED talks and indirect reciprocity‘ on August 31st, 2016.  In the lecture, I talked about our relationship with other professional people and the development of our technical reputation in their eyes as a result of altruistic sharing of knowledge. This involves communicating with others, building relationships and understanding our place in the community.  The post-course assignment is to write a reflective essay on leadership and technical quality; and we know, from past experience, that our delegates will find it difficult to reflect on their experiences and the impact of those experiences on their life and behaviour.  Maybe we should help them by including a viewing of existential art in one of the Liverpool art galleries as part of our CPD programme on Science and Technology Leadership?