Les idées noires de la physique. Ciel noir, corps noir, trou noir, matière noire et énergie noire : pourquoi cette fascination du noir chez les physiciens ? Cette interrogation permet de traverser l'histoire de la physique et d'éclairer nombre de ses enjeux actuels. Le noir de la nuit est une énigme paradoxale qui a préoccupé les astronomes pendant des siècles ; le rayonnement du corps noir est à l'origine de la révolution quantique ; le trou noir est une fascinante singularité spatiotemporelle ; la matière noire et l'énergie noire sont des hypothèses mystérieuses de la cosmologie contemporaine. A partir de leurs disciplines respectives, un astrophysicien et un philosophe des sciences apportent un éclairage à la fois critique et émerveillé sur les idées noires de la physique !

Les idées noires de la physique

If we, the physicist and philosopher decided to collaborate in order to write about physics' "black ideas," it was because the things that physics qualifies as "black" are fascinating: black sky, blackbody, black hole, dark matter, dark energy, etc. What lies behind these obscure terms? These are not just curious names, but ideas which have played - and sometimes still play - a critical role in physics, as astrophysicist Roland Lehoucq shows us. Moreover, not only is it necessary to examine how science is changing the meaning of the adjective "black," it is also vital to describe how this adjective "colours," in turn, the scientific term. That is why philosopher of science Vincent Bontems analyses what the adjective surreptitiously carries from the darkness of the imaginary into the scientific field. The black idea then becomes a black image, which inspires delectable daydreams. We therefore explain, on each occasion, the denotation of the adjective "black" - not only what it actually means to a physicist, but also its connotation; i.e., what it metaphorically, and at times unconsciously, brings to mind. In coupling the epistemological analysis of black ideas with a psychoanalysis of black images, we are following the example of philosopher Gaston Bachelard, who was already studying in tandem the historic evolution of thermal spread theories and the associations of images in ramblings on the topics of fire, science and the imaginary.

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