UM6P announces third Edition of UM6P Science Week

From 20 to 26 February 2023: The Science Week of Mohammed VI Polytechnic University addresses the theme of complexity.

Wednesday, February 15, 2023: On the occasion of its third edition of the Science Week, Mohammed VI Polytechnic University brings together an exceptional group of scientists, researchers and thinkers. This international event will take place from February 20 to 26, 2023, in the campus of UM6P at Benguerir and Laayoune.

This year’s Science Week will be placed under the theme of complexity, one of the most important themes of our time. It is represented in the acceleration of time, in widespread communication and its spectacular transformations, in the interdependence of societies within the biosphere, which they now affect. Financial markets and digital networks, social insects and swarm intelligence, birds flocks and fish banks, flash mobs and wisdom of crowd, earthquakes and floods, global warming, etc., all these phenomena fall within the scope of the sciences of the complexity.

Complexity, intuitively, is when ‘the whole is more than the sum of its parts’. Classical science, deterministic and reductionist, breaks down objects into elementary parts to better analyze them. On the contrary, the sciences of complexity put forward the non-linearity, the emergent dimension of properties and the evolution over time (the becoming) of a system, an object, or a phenomenon. All of this is part of the non-linear sciences that have been developed since the 1970s, notably within the Santa Fe Institute, whose founding members will participate in Science Week. UM6P intends to pursue research on complexity by putting forward another perspective, that of the South.

Among the most eminent personalities who will take part in the Science Week, Edgar Morin will talk about ‘the challenge of complexities in times of crisis’; Stephen Wolfram will address ‘the foundations and implications of complexity’; Dany-Robert Dufour, Muhammad Yldirim, Alan Kirman, Pierre-Noël Giraud and Redouane Taouil will discuss complexity in economics; David Chavalarias and Johan Bollen will talk about ‘toxic data and networks’.

Jamal Chaouki, Hassan Ghaziri and Steen Rasmussen will talk about ‘engineering and ingenuity’; Luc Steels will present his views on the promises and limitations of contemporary AI; Hugues Bersini will continue on ‘algocracy’ and ask the question of whether algorithms will ever take over; Hervé Zwirn will focus on ‘computational irreducibility and emergence’; Gregory Chaitin will lecture on ‘complexity and metamathematics’; Stuart Kauffman will discuss the choices for acting in a short time in the Anthropocene while Ivar Ekeland will address the crucial question of the nature of climate disruption: transition, bifurcation or catastrophe?

Each department of the university, supported by outside speakers, will explore the relationship between “complexity” and their discipline through lectures and discussions throughout the week.

In parallel to these scientific exchanges, exhibitions will be set up, a bookstore will offer a variety of books on non-linear sciences and cultural activities will also address the artistic expression of the theme: a talk-recital of Giovanni Bellucci devoted mainly to Beethoven and his monumental sonata Hammerklavier, a choir led by Ikram Chairi and a concert of Gnaoua music by Hamid Kasri are notably on the program of a scientific week rich in experiences and sharing of knowledge.

To Attend please register at this link.

Check full program here.