Author: Giorgio Chinnici

The development of science throughout the history of mankind, on a quest to discover what the world is made of.

The book moves from the reflections of the ancients to the great intellectual adventure in search of the atom, all the way to the modern description of how matter is made, how it interacts and the laws that govern it.

We go from Democritus’ atomism to that of the 19th century with the discovery of the electron and the atomic nucleus, all the way to the revolution brought in by quantum mechanics that would eventually lead to quantum field theory and the discovery of antimatter. It is a journey interwoven with scientific and philosophical themes through the juxtaposition between vacuum and matter, continuous and discrete, part and whole, wave and particle, chance and necessity.

The book investigates the enthralling history of numbers – how they were invented, what they mean, how they evolved, how the concept of infinity was achieved and much more. In the labyrinth of the continuum – an expression coined by Leibniz for philosophical issues related to real numbers – maths is our thread of Ariadne that helps us find our way and describe time and space. The author shows us the relationship between maths and philosophy in the interpretation of the world, beginning with real numbers and sets and also tackling derivatives as well as solved and unsolved maths problems.
We will discover that maths is the key tool to knowledge and a crucial part of culture; it is not for just a select few but can in fact be understood by everyone.

Giorgio Chinnici invites us to reflect on the very meaning of reality thanks to the fascinating subject of quantum mechanics, described here in a fresh and accessible manner.

Alan Turing è noto soprattutto per aver decifrato Enigma, la macchina crittografica dei nazisti, ma il suo versatile genio spaziava su numerosi altri campi. Un filo conduttore percorre la sua vita e la sua opera: la comprensione del funzionamento della mente umana e la sua imitazione mediante una macchina. Turing ha ottenuto risultati fondamentali per la logica matematica, ponendo al tempo stesso le basi della moderna informatica e per lo sviluppo del computer. È stato inoltre uno dei pionieri dell’Intelligenza Artificiale e per primo ha utilizzato gli scacchi quale banco di prova per le capacità intellettuali delle macchine. Alla fine della sua breve vita si è poi dedicato allo studio delle strutture biologiche, per avvicinarsi alla genesi del cervello umano che voleva comprendere e imitare.

This is an overview of classical physics from Galileo to Newton, Maxwell and Einstein. The book also investigates the particular symmetry represented by specular reflection and answers common questions concerning the absolute and relative nature of physical laws.