In What We Cannot Know, Marcus du Sautoy leads us on a thought-provoking expedition to the furthest reaches of modern science. Is the universe infinite? Do we know what happened before the Big Bang? Where is human consciousness located in the brain? And are there more undiscovered particles out there, beyond the Higgs boson? In the modern world, science is king: weekly headlines proclaim the latest scientific breakthroughs and numerous mathematical problems, once indecipherable, have now been solved. But are there limits to what we can discover about our physical universe?
In this very personal journey to the edges of knowledge, Marcus du Sautoy investigates how leading experts in fields from quantum physics and cosmology, to sensory perception and neuroscience, have articulated the current lie of the land. In doing so, he travels to the very boundaries of understanding, questioning contradictory stories and consulting cutting edge data.
Marcus du Sautoy discussed his book with Anita Avramides (Reader in Philosophy of Mind, University of Oxford), and Chrystalina Antoniades (Associate Professor at the Department of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Oxford). The event was chaired by Professor Ben Morgan (Associate Professor in German, Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages, University of Oxford).