Afternoon in the Science Basement

The Science Basement would like to invite you to listen and interact during an Afternoon in the Science Basement. The first speaker of the monthly fall series will be Carlos Cabanzo, a doctoral researcher from Universidade do Minho, Portugal, visiting at Aalto University, will present their work, ‘How to decide when a bridge is too old to trust?’ Somewhere, right now, someone is looking at a bridge and deciding whether it needs repair, closure, or nothing at all. That decision is rarely as clear-cut as it sounds. Carlos's research turns this problem into numbers: combining probability, structural analysis, and hazards like floods and earthquakes to figure out not just how likely a structure is to fail, but what, and when, should actually be done about it. Using historic, century-old bridges as a case study, this talk explores how risk becomes a decision, what gets weighed when safety, cost, and heritage pull in different directions, and why the "safe enough" threshold is rarely a simple choice. When: 14th of October, 2026 at 17:30-18:30 Helsinki time (EET)Where: Oodi Library, 3rd floor , The Saarikoski Rug The event is organised by The Science BasementPicture: The Science Basement