Guido Tonelli (1950) is professor of physics at the University of Pisa and is one of the leading figures behind the discovery of the Higgs boson at CERN in Geneva, where he participated in the experiments conducted with the CMS particle detector. His years of scientific work, as stated in the official citation for the award of the Medal of Honour by the President of the Italian Republic, is "the latest example of a tradition of excellence that began with Galileo Galilei through to scientists such as Enrico Fermi, Bruno Pontecorvo and Carlo Rubbia", and he has also received other important awards, including the Fundamental Physics Prize (2012) and the Enrico Fermi Prize (2013). He has released two popular science books for Rizzoli ("La nascita imperfetta delle cose" and "Cercare mondi. Esplorazioni avventurose ai confini dell'universo"), in which he explains to the general public the fundamental consequences of the discovery of the Higgs boson and the fascinating frontiers of cosmology: «scientific research – he wrote – provides us with a marvellous account of our origins, which forces us to venture into territories in which the mind is in danger of getting lost, but which contains visions able to take your breath away»

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