What is the universe made of? What is the substance of life, and how is it any different from inanimate matter? To this day it is incredibly difficult to answer these questions. In today's session, Guido Tonelli (physicist, CERN researcher and author of “Genesis”), dived into a historical discussion of cosmological and ontological theories. “I believe”, he said to the public gathered in the Basilica di Santa Barbara, “that the issue of “matter” has concerned man for a much longer time than we thought.” He considers in particular the 130 thousand year-old habit of burying corpses, in the belief that dead people would reach a new world. This ritual conveys an idea of rebellion, a revolution undertaken by men: the refusal to accept our mortal nature in a world that appears eternal and in constant renewal.

In more recent times Democritus developed a structured thesis about matter: the entire universe, according to the Greek philosopher, is made of atoms. In fact, if we were to split a rock infinitely, there would be nothing left; since it is not possible to create anti-matter from matter, there must be a fundamental, eternal, unchanging building block. “The same yearning for something solid on which to build our reality returns in Democritus’ theory”, Tonelli points out. In the first half of the twentieth century, science proved the philosopher right, but everything changed a few years later. In fact, Einstein’s equation proved that the universe hasn’t always existed. All the characteristics once attributed to matter - eternity and immutability - don’t belong to it anymore.

“Modern physics,” concludes the author, “must abandon the idea of a substrate of everlasting and unchanged matter”. Instead, science must embrace the new paradigm introduced by recent discoveries. Among these is “dark matter” and the idea of “nothingness”. Considering the incredible technological development that followed the discovery of the laser, who knows what we could conceive if we managed to really comprehend nothingness and its potential?