«De la necessite de rever» Impressions from the Symposium in honour of Rudolf Truempy held at the ETH Zuerich on 2 October 2009: 'Alpengeologie im 21. Jahrhundert'

摘要

"Of the necessity to dream" is the literal translation of the quotation in the title, which is a heading in one of Rudolf Truempy's more speculative publications ("Du Pelerin au Pyrenees"). It is clear from the text that "to dream" corresponds to what I like to call "to speculate in a controlled way": based on detailed knowledge of the region under consideration, from one's own field investigations and from published data and descriptions, tempered (and coloured!) by one's accumulated experience of basic geological processes and relationships built up through a lifetime of teaching, research and/or practical application, together with a dynamic working hypothesis which has reached a certain consensus.