Meeting with Christophe Salomon at the Institut français in Florence on 25 March

Wednesday 25 March at 6:30 p.m. the Institut français in Florence will host, at its headquarters in Palazzo Lenzi (Piazza Ognissanti 2, Florence) a lecture by Christophe Salomon, 2025 Balzan Prizewinner for Atoms and ultra-precise Measurement of Time.

The meeting is organised by the Institut français in Florence with the International Balzan Foundation, curated by Prof. Giovanni Modugno (UNIFI/LENS – European Laboratory for Non-Linear Spectroscopy) and will be moderated by Matteo Borri, researcher in the history of science at INDIRE (National Institute of Documentation, Innovation and Educational Research).

The lecture by Christophe Salomon, a French physicist emeritus research director at the CNRS, will trace the evolution of chronometry, from the first pendulum clocks of the 17th century, which were fundamental for navigation, to today’s highly accurate laser-cooled atomic fountains. These advances, crucial for technologies such as GPS, are now pushing towards future optical clocks, capable of a hundred times greater accuracy. This innovation will open up revolutionary new scenarios in fundamental physics, telecommunications and geophysics.