Opening Cerimony

Speech

LUIZ BEVILACQUA

Emeritus Professor
Federal University of Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil

Abstract. Technological and scientific advances have overcome all predictions and scenarios proposed in the course of the last century. Among the most important driving forces that boosted up those extraordinary transformations, two are to be highlighted: the extraordinary capacity to scrutinize the microcosms and the macrocosms and the extraordinary calculating capacity provided by the successive families of super-computers.

The converging achievements obtained with the help of these tools gave rise to a new methodology to deal with science. Windows were opened up connecting several knowledge compartments that used to develop without any or with very few interactions. But the more astonishing event that we are living nowadays is not the knowledge accumulation properly but the speed in which it develops. The acceleration impelled by the successive jumps in science and technology surpassed our ability to control the path of the progress. Past seems to force the way through the present and mangle the future. We are simultaneously former users and observers of objects displayed in a Science and Technology Museum. When things try to accumulate without any possible control in time we are in the presence of a shock wave. We are in the middle of a cultural shock wave. Traveling along a shock wave takes a completely different strategy as that adopted to progress along calm waters. The impact of this new cultural environment on Universiti es requires substantial modifications; it is not only a question of reviewing the curriculum, introducing or suppressing a couple of disciplines.

The advancements in Information Technology promoted a great approximation between academic communities around the world. This outreaching instrument may be used for the good or bad. If the information avalanche reduces the time devoted to creative tasks and push people to be only information transmitters, our global society may be reduced to creation centers and application centers, a stratificati on that is most undesirable. The academic community has nowadays an extraordinary chance to interact and promote an evenly exchange of ideas and cooperative contribution to the advancement of science and technology.