The Bernard Bolzano Lecture Series
The Learned Society has decided to organize a series of regular lectures by eminent scientists, to be titled “The Bernard Bolzano Lectures.” These lectures are sponsored by Karel Janeček, a patron of Czech science.
2025: Hugo Duminil-Copin
Professor of mathematics at the University of Geneva and the Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques in Bures-sur-Yvette. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including the most prestigious prize in mathematics, the Fields Medal, which he received in 2022 for solving long-standing problems in the probability theory of phase transitions in statistical physics. Hugo Duminil-Copin has fundamentally transformed the mathematical theory of phase transitions, and his work has opened up several new avenues of research. He focuses on determining the critical point at which phase transitions occur and on investigating the phenomena in its vicinity.
Critical Phenomena Through the Lens of the Ising Model
The Ising model is one of the most fundamental lattice models in statistical physics, known for exhibiting phase transitions. Originally conceived as a model for ferromagnetism, it has since emerged as a remarkably rich mathematical framework and a powerful theoretical tool for understanding cooperative phenomena. Over the past century, extensive research has led to a profound understanding of its critical phase. In this talk, we will provide an overview of key developments in the study of this foundational model while offering broader insights into statistical physics.
2023: Reinhard Genzel
Prof. Reinhard Genzel (b. 1952) is a German astrophysicist, co-director of the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics, a professor at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, and a professor emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley. For the discovery of a supermassive compact object at the center of the Milky Way, he and Andrea Ghez were awarded the 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics. The other half of the prize went to Roger Penrose for his prediction of the existence of black holes.
On Thursday, April 20, 2023, a lecture titled A Forty Year Journey was delivered in the Blue Auditorium of the Karolinum, covering the gradual unveiling of evidence for the existence of a very massive black hole at the center of our galaxy through observations made possible by key breakthroughs in experimental/observational astronomy — from adaptive optics and sensitive detectors to optical interferometry.
2021: Martin Rees
Martin Rees, the Royal Astronomer and former president of the British Royal Society, is a foreign member of the Learned Society; at the 21st General Assembly held at Karolinum in 2016, he delivered a lecture titled From Mars to the Multiverse. Five years later, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, he lectured exclusively online from Cambridge. This time, the topic was the future of the world and humanity’s impact on it: The World in 2050 and Beyond.
2019: Kip S. Thorne
In May 2019, American physicist Kip S. Thorne, winner of the 2017 Nobel Prize for the detection of gravitational waves, visited Prague. He delivered the Bolzano Lecture, titled Creating Gravitational-Wave Astronomy, on May 15, 2019, in the Blue Auditorium of Karolinum.
2017: Cédric Villani
The inaugural lecture took place on April 13, 2017, in the Blue Lecture Hall at Karolinum. The lecture, titled Of Triangles, Gases, Prices, and Men was delivered by Prof. Cédric Villani (director of the Henri Poincaré Institute in Paris and professor at Claude Bernard University in Lyon, and a Fields Medalist).