Mankind has wondered about its place in the Universe and the laws of cosmos since time immemorial. These issues will also be discussed during Copernicus Festival 2023, which will be held between 23 and 28 May at the Museum of Engineering and Technology in Kraków.

For ancient Greeks, the word ‘cosmos’ meant a complex system or order that could be found in the world. For us, the word is more frequently used to mean ‘the Universe’: everything that exists, the spacetime which originated with the Big Bang.

Subsequent scientific revolutions, from Copernicus to Einstein’s relativity theory, pushed humanity further and further away from the centre of creation. From the cosmic perspective, Earth is just one of billions of planets orbiting billions or stars in billions of galaxies.

But questions regarding the limits of space and mankind’s place in the Universe are as relevant as ever. We can wonder whether our existence is just an almost impossible coincidence or if there are certain qualities to the Universe which can lead to the emergence of intelligent beings which could explore it.

More and more, scientists are debating if the contemporary understanding of cosmos is a correct one. Did the Universe exist in any form before the Big Bang? Or maybe it is one of many? Can empirical science even answer these questions? Are we due for another scientific revolution that will change our understanding of cosmos even further?